WATER SUPPLY

closed

The project's main objectives are to secure a safe and reliable water supply for Mauritania's urban centers while fostering an efficient groundwater management and to protect and extend the finite life of Nouakchott's only water source. It also aims at improving the population's standard of living, promoting economic development through the provision of water supply infrastructure, and at the same time reducing the sector's dependency on the government budget. The Societe Nationale d'Eau et d'Electricite's (SONELEC's) investment program is subdivided in five parts, the first four covering Nouakchott and the fifth covering the secondary centers: (1) studies, network expansion and repairs; (2) rehabilitation and construction of reservoirs; (3) expansion of production system; (4) expansion of distribution system; and (5) water systems for secondary centers. The project consists of a coherent set of actions, assembled as part 1 of this investment program which are independent of the remainder of this plan. They include the monitoring of the salt water intrusion in the existing Trarza aquifer and a study to establish a groundwater management plan for the exploitation of the new Tenadi wellfield, further from the advancing saline front. The project also includes a program for leak detection, a repair and rehabilitation program of the existing distribution system in order to supply some of the poorest parts of the population with water through privately operated standpipes.