Water and Land in the Sahel: Mapping the Flow

Drawing on over thirty years of research, this book investigates the intermingling of land and water in the Sahel, analysing landscapes defined by the ebb and flow of rainfall, flooding and population movements, as well as environmental, political and social crises.

Exploring both the seasonal flooding of rivers around the Nile, Chari-Logone, Niger and Senegal, as well as agricultural irrigation projects such as dams, canals and pumping stations, the book examines the different narratives related to water and land in the Sahel. It combines fieldwork research with remote sensing, big data and GIS mapping to outline the ever-changing interplay between land and water in the region. Beyond this, the book also reinterprets the colonial and post-colonial legacies of large-scale irrigation projects and the geopolitical interests which defined them.

Supported by an Open Access website with a WebGIS and further maps and analysis, this book is an essential read for policy makers and development practitioners in the region, as well as for researchers and scholars across the fields of geography, history, political science, sustainable development and African studies.

Andrea Pase is a full professor of geography at the University of Padua. In the Sahel, his research interests concern territorial processes linked to water seen both as common resource and as the basis for the modernization of agriculture.

Angela Kronenburg García holds postdoctoral fellowships at UCLouvain (F.R.S.-FNRS) and the University of Padua. She is also affiliated with the University Eduardo Mondlane. As an anthropologist, she conducts research on religious and land-tenure change, and on pastoralism, milk and social change in Kenya, as well as on energy transition and graphite.

Mariasole Pepa is a postdoc researcher at the University of Padua and an affiliate researcher at CEDEJ-Khartoum. She is interested in the transformation in the Sahel through the lenses of water and land as well as exploring alternative methodologies to research approaches, ethics, and practices.

Federico Gianoli is a geographer specialized in GIS and Geoinformatics, focusing on open-source data in spatial analysis. As a consultant for the Joint Research Centre (JRC-EC), he conducts research on land degradation and productivity dynamics. He’s also pursuing a Ph.D. on these topics at the University of Seville, Spain.

Marina Bertoncin is an honorary professor of geography at the University of Padua. In Sahelo-Sudanese Africa her research interests concern the geography of the hydraulic territorialisation with a focus on the role of the irrigation projects for the local development (Lake Chad basin, Nile, Niger and Senegal River regions).

Carla Braga is Associate Professor of Anthropology at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences of University Eduardo Mondlane in Mozambique. Her research interests cover decolonial readings of knowledge production about Africa, onto-epistemic dimensions of the current planetary crisis, nature governance and health.