Abstract
Long-term collaboration (more than 10 years of continuing projects) among four partners has evolved from a local effort to drill groundwater wells into a multifaceted program of research and applications related to groundwater development, characterization, and protection in Bénin, West Africa. The project partners include the following: (i) a national university in Bénin, (ii) a private university in the United States, (iii) a government agency charged with development of water resources in Bénin, and (iv) a Bénin NGO focusing on the social and practical aspects of development. Continuing efforts of this partnership are being pursued under the badge of the UNESCO International Year of Planet Earth. Prior efforts associated with this project include the following: (i) modeling of a major aquifer in southern Bénin, (ii) development and statistical analysis of a regional database on element concentrations in groundwater, (iii) development of a water quality monitoring program based on collaboration with a local (rural) population, (iv) educational collaboration, and (v) drilling of groundwater wells for rural villages. Vision for the future of the project includes continuing improvement of the model for groundwater flow/transport in the southern aquifer system (including both numerical and field characterization efforts), transfer of a water quality monitoring project from the universities to the government agency, development of wellhead management/protection strategies for rural Bénin, expanded collaboration in the education efforts, and continuing research efforts focused on method development and capacity building in both Bénin and the United States.
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Acknowledgments
The work reported in this chapter has been supported through a number of funding mechanisms. Among these are multiple grants from the United States National Science Foundation (0139659, 9978192, 0138238, and 0526128).
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Silliman, S.E., Boukari, M., Lougbegnon, L., Azonsi, F. (2011). Overview of a Multifaceted Research Program in Bénin, West Africa: An International Year of Planet Earth Groundwater Project. In: Jones, J. (eds) Sustaining Groundwater Resources. International Year of Planet Earth. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-3426-7_11
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