Lake Guiers (Senegal River Delta), between Inequalities and Inequities between Urban and Rural People

Awa Niang Fall, University Cheikh Anta Diop (Senegal)
Coura Kane, University Alioune Diop of Bambey (Senegal)

Lake Guiers is located in the northwest of Senegal, in the Delta region, on the left bank of the Senegal River, south of the town of Richard-Toll. With a length of 50 km and approximately 7 km wide, Lake Guiers occupies a narrow depression oriented NNE-SSW which stretches between 15°55 and 16°23 north latitude and between 16°04 and 16°16 west longitude. It is a flat lake of tectonic origin whose formation dates back to the Quaternary, around 30,000 BP.
Lake Guiers is not an independent hydrological entity; it is connected to the Senegal River by the Taoué Canal to the north; to the west it connects to the Ndiael depression
via the Nieti Yone channel while to the south it is connected to the lower Ferlo valley from which it is
separated by the Keur Momar Sarr dike.
Today, the communities bordering the lake engage in irrigated agriculture, the
rainfall being generally insufficient to ensure a harvest. Before the construction of the Diama dam (1985), the cropping system was based on the alternation of hydrological and climatological seasons (recession, rainfed crops). After Diama, the
raising and stabilization of the water level meant that the practice of recession
agriculture was impossible, making irrigation almost obligatory. Farmers mainly practice market gardening, unlike the rest of the delta where rice cultivation predominates.
Fishing is often practiced as a secondary activity while livestock breeding is decadent
for lack of space (colonization of livestock corridors).
Lake Guiers constitutes the main surface fresh water reserve of Senegal. Its
evolution has always been very dependent on that of the Senegal River. It serves as a reserve
of fresh water for the irrigated crops installed around its perimeter and especially for the drinking water supply
of the Dakar urban area and other secondary towns in Senegal, up to 60% (or more). The water is pumped and treated on site at the Ngnith and
Keur Momar Sarr plants, then transported by penstock over 240 km to Dakar. With the
project “Touba, xepp ndox mou neex”, the waters of Lake Guiers should supply the religious town of Touba located 194 km from Dakar.
The paradox of Lake Guiers is that itApart from the drinking water plants supplying Dakar and other secondary cities by penstock, local communities do not have a drinking water supply network. Very often, these communities
get their supplies either directly from the lake or through drilling networks managed by
delegated companies with a price per m3 of water well above that of water in
urban agglomerations. This poses a problem of inequality and equity between urban and
rural residents, the first protests of which are beginning to emerge around the lake and elsewhere in
Senegal. These “quiet mobilizations”, mentioned by Tall (2021), are just the echo of a
feeling of inequality and exclusion that has persisted for years in this region.
Keywords: Lake Guiers, drinking water, inequality, inequity, rural areas