Groundwater resources in the East African Rift Valley: Understanding the geogenic contamination and water quality challenges in Tanzania

Assessing groundwater salinity across Africa

“…Fine grained sediments often contain high salinity groundwaters when compared with coarse grained sediments with higher permeability. Paleolakes explain the salinity pattern observed in unconsolidated aquifers in many parts of Africa (Figure 3c), including for example the complex salinity patterns in the alluvial-lacustrine sediments in the Kalahari region of Zambia (Banda et al, 2019), in the Shire River Basin in Malawi (Rivett et al, 2020), and the alluvial lacustrine sediments of the East African Rift Valley (Ligate et al, 2021). Salinity caused by paleolake sediments is common in arid environments since there has been insignificant flushing to remove salts from the layers since the time of aquifer recharge.…”

Insights to promote safe drinking water behavioural changes in zones affected by fluorosis in the East-African Rift Valley

“…Thus, despite the effort and the different strategies that Maasai and Meru put in place to cope with quantity and quality water supply issues, pedo-climatic conditions, high content of fluoride, poverty, and lack of infrastructure seriously challenge and threaten the life of people in the EARV. Considering that several studies show a large scale of variability in space of fluoride in ground water (Ijumulana et al, 2020(Ijumulana et al, , 2021(Ijumulana et al, , 2022 more attention should be paid to monitoring practices of this resource in terms of quantity and quality (Ligate et al, 2021). To limit the impact of these contextual factors and to ensure the future sustainability of groundwater resources in EARV, regional groundwater databases containing all-important water quality parameters could be established and updated with the collaboration of private and public sector (Ligate et al, 2021).…”

“…As groundwater is the main water resource for human and agricultural needs, the geological and hydrogeological conformation of the geographical areas described above seriously challenge the health of people living in rural communities e.g. about 25% of the Tanzanian population depends entirely on groundwater for drinking (Ligate et al, 2021;Ijumulana et al, 2022). According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), epidemiological evidence suggests that systemic fluoride intake of drinking and cooking water above 1.5 mg/L can carry an increased risk of dental fluorosis, while progressively higher concentrations lead to risks of skeletal fluorosis (Ward et al, 2009).…”

Geological and Morphometric Characteristics of Quaternary Pyroclastic Aquifers in Salak and Pangrango Stratovolcano.

“…Utilization of water sourced from volcanic rocks in the tropics is found in Southeast Asia, Central Africa, and others (Lu et al, 2015;Gourcy et al, 2020;Purwantara, 2020;Gaikwad et al, 2020;Wisitthammasri et al, 2020;Maria et al, 2021;Ligate et al, 2021). Depending on the conditions and characteristics of the geology, hydrogeology, hydrology, and other features of the water cycle, the genesis of water occurs over a period of time that varies (Alfadli and Natasia, 2017).…”