Analysis of WEFE nexus around small reservoirs in Burkina Faso using remote sensing data

Small reservoirs (SRs) are long-established water storing practices in drylands of Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) which have positive impact on rural population by meeting domestic, livestock water demand, recharge of soil water storage thus supporting household income and food security. Quantitative information on their number, location, and water storage is very uncertain and practically inaccessible. We developed a set of analytical and modelling tools to analyse the multi-purpose potential of SRs in supporting local population needs, in terms of domestic, livestock, agriculture, and electricity needs adopting a Water-Energy-Food-Ecosystem (WEFE) nexus approach. We present some preliminary results on Burkina Faso where we characterise existing SRs, identify possible future SRs in promising areas, and assess their impact on local communities accounting for both traditional water uses (agricultural and domestic) and potential additional uses (hydropower). Results showed that the addition of hydropower as additional SR water use should, in principle, not conflict with the existing water uses and that pico hydropower systems (i.e., with a power generation below 5 kW) could potentially be implemented to satisfy the needs of tens to hundreds of people during the dry season (from November to April). Our approach requires a relatively small number of freely available data based on remote sensing thus tackling the data scarcity challenge typical of remote areas in SSA.