This Research Topic is dedicated to the hydrogeology of hard rocks in Africa. Hard rocks are considered in this collection in their broad sense, including all types of compact rocks (crystalline and sedimentary) presenting secondary porosity from fracturing and weathering.

In Africa, the water demand has dramatically increased in the last decades due to population growth, urbanization and the concomitant socio-economic development. Water resources in Africa, as elsewhere in the world, are heavily impacted by climate change. The occurrence of floods and droughts is more and more frequent, resulting in a recurrent scarcity of surface water. This context highlights the need for research on climate-resilient water resources. Groundwater represents a vital alternative given its buffering properties which make it less sensitive to the global change impact. A large part of Africa is underlain by hard rocks (almost 58% of the continent area). Hence, groundwater resources in these areas represent a crucial potential for Africa to meet these pressing challenges.

The main goal of this Research Topic is to address the present state of knowledge on the characteristics of hard rocks aquifers in Africa and their quantitative and qualitative state. Water needs are very urgent in Africa and groundwater will be increasingly demanded in a changing climate environment, with more extreme events. It is thus of vital importance to assess properly the benefits of using these resources and the risks of deteriorating their quantity/quality.

The Research Topic is open to all works on hard rocks aquifers in Africa, with special emphasis on their responses to the climatic context. Contributions on recent advances on assessing their high/low potential for groundwater development, on assessing the relevant scale for their water resources sustainable management, in order to avoid over-exploitation and quality degradation, are welcome.

The Research Topic welcomes novel, conceptual and applied contributions related to water resources in hard rocks (HR) systems in Africa. Submitted manuscripts should be unpublished, nor submitted elsewhere (except conference proceedings). The scope of the collection includes the following specific topics (but is not limited to):

- Exploration, assessment, and management of African HR systems: novel approaches in the last few decades

- Role of groundwater in HR for climate resilience

- Advances in modelling: heterogeneity, flow/transport in fractured HR, dual porosity/permeability, geostatistical techniques, advanced groundwater modelling in Earth system modeling

- Present state and perspectives in ASR (aquifer storage and recovery) and MAR (managed aquifer recharge)

- Interactions of surface water, ecosystems and groundwater in HR

- Advances in GIS/RS, geophysics, geochemistry, isotopes methods applications to HR systems

- Wastewater recycling in HR environment

- Water needs in agriculture and urban development : the role of HR groundwater exploitation

- Role of NGO's with the users community on the management of HR groundwater resources.

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