Managed aquifer recharge for climate adaptation in Somalia: Opportunities, barriers, and a roadmap toward water security

Groundwater sustains most rural and urban water supply across Somalia, yet it remains poorly mapped, weakly regulated, and increasingly stressed by rising demand and erratic rainfall. Managed aquifer recharge, a set of techniques that deliberately directs surplus water underground for later use, offers a way to turn seasonal floodwater into a stored buffer against dry seasons. The Jubba and Shabelle rivers carry mean annual flows of about 5.9 and 2.4 billion m³, with runoff coefficients of only 6.5% and 2.1%, whereas diffuse recharge in the central rangelands is at most 5% of a 100–250 mm annual rainfall. Alluvial terrace aquifers, with transmissivities of 10⁻³–10⁻² m² s⁻¹ and total dissolved solids below 1,000 mg L⁻¹, are the most promising targets, but about 70% of surveyed water points exceed the 1,500 µS cm⁻¹ salinity guideline, and a single year of sampling on the Shabelle implied a sediment load of about 6.9 million tonnes. Sand dams elsewhere in East Africa cost about US$35 per beneficiary, yet roughly half fail, mainly through siltation, while World Bank commitments of US$385 million and US$70 million for Horn of Africa and Somali groundwater resilience offer entry points for pilots. This article sets out why managed aquifer recharge merits attention in Somalia, reviews the main obstacles to its adoption, and proposes a phased roadmap from aquifer mapping through pilot projects to national policy. Realizing this potential will require sustained investment in data, institutions, and locally appropriate engineering rather than any single technical fix.