A fast-growing city, Touba concentrates major supply challenges. A review of a groundwater diagnosis and planning approach.
One of Senegal's largest gatherings-time agglomerations, Touba illustrates the tension between urban growth and groundwater availability.
The diagnosis
An inventory of structures, a piezometric campaign and an abstraction balance produced a shared picture of the aquifer and its room for manoeuvre.
Planning
On this basis, a layout for new boreholes and a monitoring scheme were proposed, combining short-term security with aquifer sustainability.
Lessons learned
Beyond the Touba case, the approach is reproducible: wherever urban growth outpaces knowledge of the resource, a shared diagnosis and a monitoring scheme make it possible to decide on solid foundations rather than in haste.
“Anticipating always costs less than repairing: planning the resource is an investment, not an expense.”
