
Huge water reserve discovered in Kenya - gmatty
http://www.itv.com/news/2013-09-10/kenya-water-aquifer-found-in-lotikipi/
======
JabavuAdams
Fantastic!

Let's concoct some overly optimistic growth statistics for how this will
stimulate the Kenyan economy. Let's say 19% for the first 10 years, then 15%
for 10 more, then 12% for the next five.

Based on those fudged figures, we'll convince the government to take on
excessive debt to pay for water development, etc. projects. Since the figures
are fudged, and since we'll do this hand in hand with local elites /
kleptocrats, they'll never be able to repay the debt.

We'll funnel this money right back to Western consulting and construction
firms.

When locals who are having their lives destroyed by the development projects
start to demonstrate, we'll squeeze them until they turn to violence and call
them terrorists.

When the real international terrorists join in to fight the evil imperialists
(us), we'll drone-strike, death-squad, and black-site them, citing our earlier
failure to act in Sudan.

Can you tell I've been reading _Confessions of an Economic Hitman_? I am
excited about the new iPhone, though.

~~~
rewind
The positivity on HN lately is almost too much to handle.

~~~
Widdershin
I'm starting to worry that reading Hacker News comments is going to
drastically sour my outlook in life over time.

~~~
lutusp
> I'm starting to worry that reading Hacker News comments is going to
> drastically sour my outlook in life over time.

That may be, but direct experience would likely do that faster.

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PakG1
I don't claim to understand African issues very well, so take my comments with
the grain of salt that I'm very ignorant.

The civil wars that happen in certain African nations are troubling. But what
was more troubling to me was reading news how factions would take control by
poisoning wells that provided water for citizens. It was unthinkable to me
that someone could actually do that, especially in certain areas where water
was scarce. Long-term effects seemed to be ignored in favour of short-term war
gains. Having never experienced such a difficult situation, I can't process
what kind of motivation and thinking could cause such horrific action.

If such water supplies are found in areas where there is conflict, I worry
that it only would add to the conflict, as they would be found as key tactical
points to conquer and hold. It makes me sick that such good news brings such
negative thoughts to my mind.

~~~
laglad
I speak as an African (Nigerian).

As humans, we plan into the future. However, our planning timeframes are
limited by how far into the future we can imagine. Further, our ability to
imagine the future depends on how likely we believe that future to be.

In the West where life is safe and prosperous, planning/imagining 20-30 years
out is reasonable. In all likelihood, you will live that long. However, in
war-torn African countries, the planning timeframe is much shorter for the
people. If one faction can gain an advantage that gives them dominance over
another faction for the next 2 years, they'll view that as ok. They do so
because they can't actually think further than that. The past has taught them
not to. This leads to awful decisions in a 10-yr frame. And so they stay
trapped in a shitty situation.

I think the actionable question here is "How can an (x+n) year future be
imagined?" where x is the current imagined future whether it be a day, month
or year and n is any additional time.

Sadly, this question is philosophical until the basic needs of survival are
met.

~~~
GuyCall
This is a great observation about how critically important the expectation of
long-term safety is. Take a rich developed country and reduce that expectation
from decades down to years and watch the economy collapse. Those guarantees of
safety allow a huge amount of wealth to be created. People can invest huge
amounts of capital into projects with very long and beneficial payoffs

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JulienSchmidt
Exclusive rights on this reserve bought by Nestlé in 3.. 2.. 1..?

[http://www.worldcrunch.com/poisoning-well-nestl-accused-
expl...](http://www.worldcrunch.com/poisoning-well-nestl-accused-exploiting-
water-supplies-bottled-brands/business-finance/poisoning-the-well-nestl-
accused-of-exploiting-water-supplies-for-bottled-brands/c2s4503/)

~~~
icoder
This was exactly my thought after having seen a documentary about how Nestle
does business

~~~
Maarten88
I saw that documentary too[1]. They will see this discovery not as 70 years of
clean drinking water, but as 70 years of huge profits. They will do whatever
it takes to buy exclusive rights and then pump it out as fast as they can
(with little care for the environment), put it in bottles, then cleverly
market and sell it to the local people who live there, for prizes that only
the middle and upper classes can afford.

They make billions that way. Sickening.

Let's hope the government there will do good and keep multinationals like
Nestle from ripping this water off the local people.

[1]
[http://www.uitzendinggemist.nl/afleveringen/1364866](http://www.uitzendinggemist.nl/afleveringen/1364866)
(dutch)

~~~
desas
Coca cola are not far behind, but they do flavour the water before selling it.

------
r0h1n
I wonder if Kenya's relative underdevelopment (compared to both western
countries and farming countries like India/China etc.) is the reason this
aquifer has remained undiscovered for so long.

Nonetheless, I hope the people of Kenya will learn from the mistakes of those
other countries when it comes to sustainable utilization of aquifer water
instead of the indiscriminate use we've seen elsewhere.

Links:

NASA analysis of India's fast-depleting groundwater, including aquifers:
[http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/india_water.html](http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/india_water.html)

Economist piece on acquifers drying up around the world:
[http://www.economist.com/node/17199914](http://www.economist.com/node/17199914)

------
chad_oliver
That's great news. The aquifer is below a dry and poor region of Kenya, so I
really hope that the government will be able to use the water to develop the
region.

This region will also have the LAPSSET transport corridor built in a few
years. Put together, I'm feeling very positive about the future.

------
graeme
Very good news that it is replenished from mountains and thus is not a fossil
aquifer. Should make it easier to manage.

------
jdmitch
in this follow-on article ([http://www.itv.com/news/2013-09-10/potential-
significance-of...](http://www.itv.com/news/2013-09-10/potential-significance-
of-discovery-cannot-be-overstated/)) there are a few more details on how Alain
Gachet discovered the aquifer:

 _He takes existing satellite, radar and geological maps of the area and
layers them on top of each other to create one all-encompassing study of what
lies beneath the soil._

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ajtaylor
This is certainly great news for the people of Kenya!

I've always wondered how they estimate how long a water resource can last. In
this case, they said 70 years. But does that take into account the increased
usage/population the area will get now that it has more water? It seems to me
that the water needs are ever growing, while the water source stays relatively
the same.

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eliben
What ticks me about such announcements is that too often they don't really
mean anything besides the media blowing things out of proportion. This is
unfortunately very common in anything nutrition or health based, but often
applies to scientific "breakthroughs" as well. The media picks up some vague
research result and hyping it to make headlines.

I just really hope this is not the case here, because it's truly good news for
a dry region where water means everything.

This, along with the large recent oil and natural gas discoveries kind of
makes me wonder how many such additional surprises the earth crust hides, that
will be discovered soon due to much better discovery technologies and
computational resources.

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has2k1
Anyone know how aquifer sizes are measured? I would guess a sonar based
system.

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ekm2
I am amused by the comments on this post and even the story itself.Kenya's
_primary_ problem is not a lack of water.Around 70 percent of the land is rich
with multiple rivers,which is why it is one of the leading producers of Tea
and Coffee.Only some parts of Northern Kenya,around Lodwar have dry spells
.Western Kenya has the opposite problem:flash floods that usually occur around
April and March.

Corruption and poor management of resources are the major headaches facing the
country,not droughts.

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Jongseong
Groundwater will become an increasingly important resource, and it will be
especially critical in a region that experiences periodic droughts like East
Africa. Kenya faces a water crisis, and water cuts were not uncommon even for
those with access to tap water when I lived in Kenya around the turn of the
millennium (I don't know how it is now).

However, because of its perception as a common-pool resource—land owners think
they are entitled to the water beneath their land—groundwater management seems
to me to present a particular challenge. Are there any success stories in
sustainable groundwater management that Kenya could look at? Kenya does have
the framework for managing water resources, but it's a question of
implementation and political will. Control over resources seems to often end
up in the hands of influential individuals who operate with impunity.

------
shire
I lived there for several years so I must say this is exciting I can only
imagine how they feel, There are so many undiscovered territories on mother
earth I'm just glad there is people out there not giving up on humanity and do
what it takes to solve the big problems.

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sspiff
Finally, some positive news out of Africa! Let's hope we (both local
governments and groups, and Western "aid") don't screw this up.

I'm not familiar with the Kenyan political climate, so if anyone else has some
experience or knowledge about this, could you enlighten the rest of us about
whether the government is helping the population as a whole or serves minority
interests? Is the country stable? Bordering Sudan, Ehtiopia and Somalia can't
be easy.

~~~
jessaustin
_...whether the government is helping the population as a whole or serves
minority interests?_

I'm not particularly knowledgeable about Africa, but as a human being I
observe that _all_ governments are a mix of these two activities. "Good"
governments seem to focus more on the former (or maybe they have enough
resources that minority interests can do well in less conspicuous fashion),
but it isn't as though African governments come from a different planet than
governments elsewhere.

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educating
Didn't something like this happen in the Left Behind series? African nation
gets better irrigation and raises food for rest of nation, or something like
that?

Granted, Kenya isn't barren.

Maybe they could build a water park.

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herbig
What is ITV.com and why is no other news organization reporting this?

~~~
anigbrowl
The BBC's main UK competitor. It's not really big news, but rather follow-up
from an interesting disvoery about a year or so ago, which was widely covered
eg
[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2133339/Massi...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2133339/Massive-
underground-reserves-water-Africa.html) which is a surprisngly good story by
DM standards, but which I picked mainly because it has a good map.

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frank_boyd
Sold to Nestlé in 3.. 2.. 1..

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glorio
dont think this article suits in HN

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pokoleo
I hate to be _that guy_ , but is this relevant?

~~~
rabino
Hopefully people will, you know, stop dying and we hackers can go back to do
real relevant things like instagram clones and settle once and for all which
one is the better Lisp.

~~~
0X1A
Cmon, you can't really expect an audience base that is probably mostly
introverted and cynical to actually find joy in reading about a positive find
in a third world country could you? In all seriousness though, I think this
can be well developed if it isn't exploited by privatization. Since, ya know,
most things that would be greatly beneficial to developing countries usually
are.

~~~
tankbot
It's true. My first thought when reading "if it is managed properly" was
"yeah, right." We humans tend to fuck things up.

You see? Cynical.

