The BBC reports that a huge underground lake has been found in Sudan’s Darfur region, which scientists believe “could help end the conflict in the arid region”.
Presumably it is non-renewable fossil water, like the Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System.
Why this should help bring about peace, rather that provide another example of the natural resource curse, it not clear.
There is not much water in Dafur. The is no oil in Somalia. If the Chinese state oil company, CNOOC, succeeds in finding oil in Somalia, will that bring about peace in Somalia?
What happens to any system depends not only on the inputs to the system, but also on the state of the system. Just adding an input, be it water or oil, is no guarantee that peace will be the result. The scientists quoted by BBC seem to have an overly simplistic model in mind.
I agree that as long as our dignity goes to sleep when our social need of luxury lowers us to the dealing partnership with feudal owners of those areas, not much can be changed there. It may be Chinese who do business there but so is the keyboard I use now.
This was an interesting article. Hopefully, the resource will be able to help the people in need either directly or indirectly, and the resource will not be exploited by other companies, such as water bottlers.
The Ogalla is not an underground lake nor an underground river as envisioned by many, but a gigantic sponge holding enough water to fill Lake Huron. The aquifer ranges in thickness from less than a foot to 1,300 feet and averages about 200 feet in most areas. The greatest volume of water in the Ogallala underlies the state of Nebraska where the aquifer actually bubbles to the surface in places.