(ambient music)
Seen from the sky,
water gives its blue color to our planet
But the fresh water that's indispensable to life
represents an infantilism part of all that blue
Soon we'll be eight billion people
sharing this vital reserve
that's gradually eroding due to pollution,
waste and global warming.
One human being out of three
already suffers from a lack of water.
Perhaps the solution is to look under our feet,
at the water in the dizzying depths of the Earth,
the aquifers.
(ambient music)
Over a period of two years
we followed Alain Gachet, a geophysicist and explorer
who has perfected a revolutionary method
for finding underground water anywhere in the world.
This method has already saved
hundreds of thousands of lives.
It could save millions.
(ambient music)
This story begins in 2013.
We meet Alain Gachet at his home in Tarascon
in Southeast France.
Unknown to the broad public,
his name primarily circulates amongst
the humanitarian agencies of the United Nations.
UNESCO, the agency that's responsible
for water management in the world
has commissioned him to explore
the subsoil of Northern Kenya.
Today, East Africa is ravaged by the great drought
which started in 2011.
Alain Gachet concentrates his study on the most vast,
porous and most arid region of Kenya, Turkana.
He christened his invention WATEX,
short for Water Exploration.
It's a mathematical algorithm that combines
satellite images from NASA and Earth science parameters.
We're lucky enough to discover WATEX's
first image of the zone.
It's very dark.
If it's very black that means it's very dry, immensely dry.
There's no water down to probably the first 80 meters
but water might lay even deeper.
That may be why it's so black.
The water's gone down so deep
that it disappears completely from the radar screen.
And if by chance this black hole
overlays a deep sedimentary basin
where the water infiltrates deeply enough,
we might discover deep water down to
one, two, three, 400 meters.
But for us that's interesting,
we call that an aquifer.
It took six months of assembly,
analysis and computation to accomplish this mapping
of the aquifer resources of Turkana.
It's like an echography that sees
hundreds of meters into the ground.
With the head in the stars we see from space
a new underground galaxy which is practically unknown.
Now if we really want to concrete our ideas
we have to go on site and break rocks
to check if we're not wrong.
(uptempo music)
To confirm the hypothesis of his map
he has to study the geology on site
so we follow him to Kenya.
First stop is Lodwar, 48,000 inhabitants,
capital of the region of Turkana.
11 hours by land from the capital Nairobi.
Gachet's research indicates the presence
of an aquifer just five kilometers from the city of Lodwar.
With his WATEX map connected to his GPS
he looks for the spot where the water
from the rainy season infiltrates the subsoil
to feed the aquifer.
He specifically looks for porous, permeable rocks,
irrefutable geological proof that water infiltrates
and does not remain on the surface.
There, big grained,
that's what we call a recharge zone.
The water is literally swallowed by the rock like a sponge.
All the optimal conditions are met
for this to be a magnificent aquifer.
It's a considerable mass of sandstone
that we see stretching out at a great distance,
all of that is sandstone.
All the sandstones are filling a great aquifer basin below.
Around us arid land as far as the eye can see.
Difficult to imagine a water reserve
a hundred meters under our feet.
Better still, his WATEX map indicates the presence
of an aquifer 20 times bigger
at the very north of Turkana in the Lotikipi Plain.
So we leave for the border in South Sudan and Uganda
heading on the track for Lokichogio, five hours away.
On this Lotikipi Plain the geological indications
confirm the existence of a gigantic aquifer.
But the ultimate irrefutable proof comes when you drill.
Alain Gachet hands his map over to his clients,
UNESCO and the Kenyan government.
The sites of boreholes and their depths
are laid out to a precision of one meter.
It's July 2013 and the drillers install their equipment.
The first exploratory borehole is complicated to set up
because there isn't just one
but three aquifers on top of each other
according to Gachet's hypothesis.
The last aquifer must be hiding 400 meters underground,
almost the depth of an oil deposit.
This drilling is expensive, about $200,000.
Alain Gachet must succeed.
The stakes are very high.
In this area, nomad populations with their herds
seek scarce and intermittent watering holes.
The drilling rig is visible for kilometers around
and the women flock to it
as if emerging from nowhere.
What's being attempted here can change their lives.
The technicians work in rotation day and night
in the withering heat.
(uptempo music)
(water gushes)
On the eighth of July, 2013 water spouts out.
(water gushes)
(singing in foreign language)
This whole zone here
which today is totally deserted
and where the population continues to suffer
from drought, malnutrition and from undernourishment,
I think we have the opportunity to transform this
into a major economic zone.
(singing in foreign language)
This day marks a decisive step
for Alain Gachet who is deeply touched.
The women thank him for having revealed the water
that was always present under their feet.
The aquifers are porous subterranean rocks
that imprison the water they contain
between two layers of impermeable clay.
They're called confined aquifers.
The reserves of water they contain are 30 times
more important than all the fresh water
on the surface of the earth.
Sometimes located kilometers down,
the aquifers are not touched by pollution
from human activity as the superficial
groundwater tables might be.
The water that feeds them comes from the rain and snow melt.
It infiltrates the ground
sometimes hundreds of kilometers away
and slowly migrates through the geological layers.
An aquifer takes millions of years to fill out
and only a few decades to be emptied.
You can destroy an aquifer by pumping too fast
without taking into account the rechargeable quantity.
An aquifer that's dead is like a sponge
that contracts one last time and won't fill up again.
Alain Gachet's expertise
goes beyond finding aquifers.
He also masters their functioning
and knows if they're renewable or not
in order to ensure sustainable exploitation,
The five aquifers Gachet discovered in Turkana
are renewable.
This discovery is important and in September 2013,
on the occasion of a water summit
organized in the capital Nairobi,
the Kenyan government and UNESCO announced
the presence of 245 billion cubic meters
of drinkable water in Turkana.
The Minister of the Environment Judi Wakhungu
presents the WATEX map to the media.
We have now the possibility
of actually having a bread basket in Turkana,
something that we could never have imagined before.
We have the possibility of having industries in Turkana
so it is very, very exciting news
and I think it's even going to take a long time
for people in the country to even imagine.
All the experts confirm
that the discovery changes things completely for Turkana.
In his technical report, Alain Gachet posits
that the great aquifer of the Lotikipi Plain
multiplies ninefold Kenya's fresh water reserves.
The international press picks up the story.
(uptempo music)
In Paris, Alexandre Taithe,
a researcher at the Foundation for Strategic Research
is well-aquatinted with this region of Kenya
but is skeptical about the benefits
and value of Gachet's discovery
for the inhabitant's development.
I remember an article of his
and I quoted in which he explains that thanks to water,
the people of Turkana will pass
from the stone age to modern times.
That's also the way that many Kenyan
developmental specialists and NGOs look at things
before arriving in a place they don't know
and that they presume they're going to develop.
All plans of the past which consisted of
trying to settle the nomads around
hydraulic equipment didn't work.
Obviously the discovery of water in Turkana
is very good news.
Now though who will take advantage of this?
It's not the Turkana people who are going to invest
in their own county.
And to be sure it's thanks to the funds
from the Japanese government
that UNESCO and the Kenyan government
launched the five exploratory boreholes in Turkana.
The WATEX map of Turkana's subterranean water
and all the data produced are now
the property of the Kenyan state.
It now becomes its job to transform
these exploratory boreholes
into sustainable production wells
and to make its development choices
with the local authorities.
Two years after the discovery of the aquifers
we return with Alain Gachet
to see how this treasure of 245 million
cubic meters of fresh water
has changed the life of the Turkana population.
It's 2015 and our twin engine plane lands in Lodwar,
the closest town to the small aquifer.
Just at the edge of town a happy surprise,
wells have been installed by the Kenyan government.
They're equipped with pumps and operate with solar energy.
Alain Gachet notes that all the wells
drilled according to his directions are productive.
At last he can drink the water from the aquifer.
He scrupulously takes note of the taste and characteristics.
He also meets the population
and asks questions about their daily uses for the water,
and how they are learning about agriculture
and irrigation techniques.
We are very happy to have this water.
Before the arrival of this water
it was very difficult.
Now our animals can drink and graze here.
Before we had to walk with our animals to the river
to find something to drink.
It was really hard here, very hard.
For the animals, for us, even for our dogs.
Everyone had to go to the river to drink
but thank God, today we are truly happy.
It makes me very happy because in 20 years,
it'll take time.
I think in 20 years this will be a California.
You'll be able to produce all kinds of citrus fruits,
all the fruits they want to provide some cash
to these people here.
They'll get richer.
It's obvious this will require organization
but once the wells are dug and maintained,
I'd say that here with good soil everything will follow.
The government really has to promote much more education
and particularly education in agricultural schools
because agriculture, well you can't improvise,
the Earth has its laws.
You have to learn them.
In Europe we have almost 1,500 years apprenticeship now,
2,000 years, more.
It takes a long time.
Gachet suggests that the head
of the small agricultural community go with him
to check on a spot that seems abnormally humid
on his WATEX map.
After a half hour in the four by four off the mapped track,
hidden behind a curtain of dunes
a carpet of wild vegetation appears.
Here is your land, the promised land.
(laughs)
We discover at the same time
as the head of the community a gigantic green expanse
in the middle of the desert.
I discovered by satellite south of Lodwar
an extremely strange surface of some 1,400 hectares
entirely surrounded by dunes.
When you cross the dunes
you plunge into a kind of basin
with soil that's just begging to be cultivated.
There is some water.
Yes, it's moist.
Yeah. -: It's moist.
Of course we have water.
If we drain properly the access of water
we can start with a little project
and you can grow vegetable all here.
This region's entering a virtuous circle.
They have the soil, they have the water
and now the oil companies are making discoveries,
they have energy, access to energy.
At last, at last.
That's the triangle of virtue,
energy, soil, water.
It's the basis of prosperity.
Two years after the discovery
of this first aquifer,
we can see the beginning of development but not prosperity.
In the zone of Lodwar,
the inhabitants crowd around four wells.
That's a modest infrastructure
when we know there's over 10 billion
cubic meters of water here,
enough to satisfy the consumption of a city like Paris
for more than 10 years.
It's not two wells, three wells,
four wells that these zones need.
They need a hundred.
For that you need investment
because these wells are expensive.
So, I would say that for $3 million
we could already stabilize the resources.
(uptempo music)
We resume our roads towards the north
heading for the giant aquifer of the Lotikipi Plain.
For Gachet it's a return he's been waiting for
to the first exploratory borehole
where in 2013 women danced in the geyser of fresh water.
Covering a surface of more than 4,000 square kilometers
with reserves estimated at 200 billion cubic meters,
the three superposed aquifers of Lotikipi
possess a volume of water 20 times
that of the Lodwar aquifer.
No water, no women, nothing.
The well's closed.
There's just a sealed casing
from the former well sticking out of the ground.
Gachet checks that this tube so complicated to install
penetrates the three aquifers.
Because he had only watched the drilling of the first.
(tap echoing)
The three echoes confirm that
but then what happened?
Gachet will ask the head of the Lotikipi district.
Water sample was taken to Nairobi chemist.
When the commenter were asking when
this water been drilled and it's not in use
so what we had there is that
this water is very much salty,
that it's not good for human consumption.
Because of these reports that water saline
it's not fit for human consumption.
But the question is people have been
drinking this water before,
no reports are there that people have died.
Alain Gachet remembers
that he had also tasted the water burbling
from the borehole two years ago and it wasn't salty.
He's beginning to understand what must have happened
and he persuades the district head
to accompany him to the closed well in order to explain.
(children giggling)
It's a pity they don't produce water here.
It cannot be salty, free aquifers, you see?
When they drilled they mix all the water.
When drilling the driller
ought to have isolated each aquifer with cement
and make separate analysis.
He didn't do that.
As it turns out,
the water in one of the three aquifer is saline.
Gradually the fresh water from the other two aquifers
and the saline water mixed.
Lokichogio is there between the two mountains
so you have a corridor which opens to Uganda
and all the water swallows like,
it's like the entrance of a bottle
and here is a big bottle.
All water comes into the big bottle
with big veins like that.
So this is a recharge.
Every year, every year a lot of water is coming there.
It doesn't come from the sky here.
As long as it rains
in Uganda. In Uganda
you have water here. Water here.
You don't care even if it doesn't rain here,
you don't care.
Water is coming from very far
and then penetrates underground,
Well, you know all the women dancing around
taking water from
and they drank the water with a lot of pleasure
and that's harming the people.
Wow, what a story.
Did I tell you how many kilometers
they are walking to get water everyday here?
They walk for the whole day
then come in the evening home.
20, coming back 20, 40 kilometers walking.
And with all the cattle?
Yeah, with the cattle.
(ambient music)
The height of absurdity.
These women have 200 billion cubic meters
of water under their feet
but where do they go now
to get the water they need everyday?
Alain Gachet wants to note the GPS coordinates
of the seasonal watering hole where these women go.
Over the 20-kilometer route we ran into men
and their herds who were converging from all over.
Some have been walking for days.
(ambient music)
They shouldn't have to depend on watering holes
that are so unhealthy and polluted.
Look, there you see the animals, all their excrement,
they piss, they shit.
I mean, the little girls drink that water
and they manage to survive, I don't know how
but the drama is that there's no well nearby.
They could have made a well to extract water
and that's the difference between deep wells
and these puddles that are conducive to malaria.
The mortality is such that only the strongest survive.
So, it will be dry very soon.
It will be dry very soon.
Two months, it will be finished.
And what will happen with all these people?
Then they crash.
I hope after this maybe you look up
to the county that got us and meet their governor.
We want to meet him--
Yeah, maybe explain to him some of these issues.
Gachet keeps his promise.
He returns to Lodwar, the county capital
to inform the governor about the situation.
I met a special friend before coming to meet with you
in my office in France.
I want you to have this document in hand.
These are dip of the first
which are highly sustainable for centuries.
If you drill for pastoral east
wells all along here down to 100 meter
you will have fresh water all along here, no problem.
So once we've gotten a picture of this
then now we can plan to look for resources
and maximize the use of visual.
Alain understands that the governor
of the Turkana region who should be the most concerned
has never received the WATEX map.
Neither UNESCO nor the Nairobi central government
had considered it necessary to supply him with it.
And yet with this information
his development objectives could at last become realistic.
But what leeway does he really have?
We realized that the discovery of gigantic
reserves of water in a country that desperately needs it
doesn't fundamentally alter the equation.
Lack of political will, of the means, of a vision
has a direct impact on the population.
Today, approximately 40% of the Kenyan population
lacks access to clean water.
And around the world, some 5,000 children
die everyday from illnesses related to unhealthy water.
I went beyond my mandate as a scientist
by going to see the governor and giving him the documents.
And by reminding the governor the importance
of these subterranean objectives.
I played my last card with this trip.
I have no reason to go any further
and to fight against windmills.
In this long journey with Alain Gachet
we've seen how hard it is for him
to be satisfied with just finding water.
Everything about water interests him.
Science, economy, politics.
Since childhood he'd seen himself
as an explorer in all of these spheres.
I saw it in Madagascar.
I saw electricity arrive, the railroad.
There was no magic, it was technology.
And I said to myself, Alain, you have to be a scientist.
You adore nature, be a botanist like your father.
You could first of all be a geologist.
But I told myself, no, first be a physicist
because everything is based on physics.
This is the way to understand nature.
I understood that quickly
and I would say that I had a bawl with math
and physics at the beginning
while remaining a geologist prospecting for
butterflies on one side and minerals on the other.
The beauty of both of these facets.
With a masters in nuclear physics
and quantum mechanics,
he entered the Nancy School of Mining
which trains the best of French engineers.
He learned about the management of energy and base metals.
At 27 he was recruited
by the French national oil company Elf Aquitaine.
As an exploration geophysicist and geologist
he prospected for hydro carbons in the North Sea.
Elf awarded him the innovation prize for an invention
allowing the discovery of dangerous gas-bearing zones
that no one was able to see.
We're not just technicians,
we're also protectors of the human community
we bring along on our adventure.
And this responsibility leads you at one point
to meet and deal with powerful people.
Decision makers who have the power in their hands.
Power can be dizzying, the power to decide.
For me I had the technical power
but not the power to decide about investment
in such and such an area,
in such and such a country.
In 1992, he was promoted number two
of Elf Congo in Congo Brazzaville
and entrusted with international negotiations.
In 1994, the president of Congo, Pascal Lissouba,
decides to sell the shares owned
by his country in Elf Congo.
Elf's management in Paris takes advantage of the situation
and sets a ridiculous purchase price.
Alain Gachet refuses to conduct
the negotiations on those terms.
But I said, you're screwing up the Congoist people.
You're going to set up a ferocious civil war.
You're pushing people to despair.
They told me, "Gachet, you're playing politics, get out."
Alain Gachet left
his comfortable situation with Elf.
He negotiated two years of salary
and was prohibited from working for competing oil companies
during a period of four years.
With his severance pay in pocket,
he left for the United States
to learn about the latest radar technologies.
His goal, to set up his own exploration mining company.
And I created my firm in 1999.
I have this vision that I'm going to do something brilliant.
I have the tools.
I didn't think at all of water of course,
I thought I'd get rich in gold mines, et cetera.
In 2002, the no competition clause
with Elf finally ended.
Shell asks him to look for oil in Libya and he accepts.
It's while analyzing the radar images of Libya
that his attention is drawn
by an abnormal sign of humidity
in the middle of the desert.
His diagnostic is almost unbelievable.
A gigantic subterranean water leak.
The leak comes from the pipes
feeding the great manmade river
constructed by Colonel Gaddafi.
Water is spreading over a territory as big as Portugal.
I told myself that experience
is now going to let me discover aquifers.
My ambition was to filter those radar images
to such a point that the only thing that would appear
would be humidity.
I have to say the idea took me over like a fever.
From then on, radar exploration
becomes Alain Gachet's core business.
But how can you see underground with satellites
that are in orbit 800 kilometers above the earth?
Satellites provide two kinds of images.
Optical images which are color photographs
close to the visual reality
and radar images which are like black and white echographies
that illustrate physical properties of the ground
up to a few meters deep.
An experiment with a simple lab radar
shows how electromagnetic hyperfrequency waves
react to humidity.
There you can clearly see
that the more I moisten the sand,
the more its radar response increases.
The curve increases and there it's quite evident.
Radar is sensitive to two things,
humidity and roughness.
Roughness in this context means
the rocks that are spreading over the desert
that send back many echoes.
But a surface that's totally flat yet humid
will give the same signal.
For two years, Alain Gachet devotes himself
to the elaboration of a mathematical algorithm
to separate those two signals
and to just keep the information related to humidity.
In 2004 his invention hasn't yet been tested on site
but the humanitarian agencies
of the United Nations hear about it.
Among those agencies, the High Commission on Refugees
is urgently looking for water.
Hundreds of thousands of Sudanese civilians
are feeling the Darfur conflict
to take refuge in Chad, the neighboring country.
Marc Andre Bunzli working with the UNHCR
coordinates the technical aspects
of water supplies in the refugee camps.
I wondered how we were going to find water
for 20,000 people at the time
knowing that the refugee camps would about that size.
So, that was kind of a panicky time at the HCR
when we really wondered how were going to manage
to give drinking water
to all those people and their animals.
We begin by finding water supply from the surface
or water to be treated
and that's what we're going to distribute first
and trucking it in.
We put it in the trucks to be distributed.
It's extremely expensive, it's extremely inefficient
but it's usually the only source of water
that we find right away
and then we begin to do some exploration
and we try to find other sources of water.
The first wells dug with traditional techniques
are frequently unproductive,
a waste of time, a waste of money
and the refugees continue to flood in.
So, the United Nations call me.
They know that I have at my disposal
tools that are extremely effective
and I am the only one who's apparently available
and open enough to innovation
to be able to face this crisis with the right tools.
The clock is ticking.
From his headquarters, Alain Gachet is searching for water
for some 250,000 refugees.
After four months of analysis and calculation
he at last discovers subterranean reserves
and leaves for Chad, the country
into which the refugees are flooding
to determine the drilling sites.
I discovered several groups of these refugees
dying in the dust.
It was total improvisation in total disarray
and I even asked myself at one point,
what are you doing in this hellhole?
In order to continue my job
I preferred not seeing the refugees.
So, I locked myself in the car
and did my navigating with no visibility.
I'd say to the driver right, left,
straight ahead, stop.
I grab my hammer and I break a few rocks,
verify the geology and we'd set off again.
We went through that process until we found
a good place to install a well.
I collected several blocks of rock in the car's trunk.
With my pot of paint I painted one in white
and put it down there.
I recorded in my mapping application the GPS coordinates
and I took off again to be able to indicate to the drillers
who were coming behind us
that that was the place to dig a hole.
(ambient music)
But when I saw the water gurgling forth in Darfur,
it's not about oil, it's about people.
In 2005, his invention attracts the attention
of some American scientists,
in particular Dr. Saud Amer
of the United States Geological Survey.
It's he who audited the WATEX method
for the state department.
This international expert in radar remote sensing
advices the White House on problems related to water.
I thought it is really good methodology
and it worth tried it.
And that's where we tried it in Darfur
and I was astonished with the success rate.
And this is not something from us,
the report came from UNESCO, UNICEF and the NGOs.
The success rate went to 98%,
every time they drilled they found water.
To me, Alain is really a very good scientist.
He is genius actually
that's why I earlier said
anyone can study remote sensing,
anyone can study hydrology and hydrogeology
but it comes to the point the expertise.
How much expertise and how much talent you have
and there are a lot of gifted people in many disciplines.
What happened here is the inferring.
From emergencies to the long-term
at the request of the American State Department,
the USGS and Alain Gachet studied the resources
in aquifers all over Darfur
some 200,000 square kilometers.
In two years, results were impressive,
1,700 wells are dug to supply
almost three million refugees.
These wells are still productive.
This success attracts the curiosity of the European Union
which invites Gachet to explain his methods.
Upon arrival in Brussels from the very beginning
they say, "Mr. Gachet, no, we can't give you 20 minutes.
"You have five minutes in a little conference hall,
"a workshop."
Why, what happened?
"Mr. Gachet, you're a dangerous man.
"You find water in war zones."
I said, "First of all, you asked me.
"The United Nations asked me to find water in war zones
"and it's especially in war zones
"that you need to find water.
"People are uprooted, they're dying of thirst.
"Do you know what it means to die of thirst
"in your Brussels office?
"You don't know what means.
"Me I saw it.
"You have an obligation to help those people."
In spite of the success in Darfur,
United Nations agencies will no longer
call on him for several years.
As for American scientists, they're only interested
in the best method on the market and that's WATEX.
Saud Amer and Alain Gachet have multiplied
the discoveries of aquifers
in arid zones like Ethiopia and Somalia.
Collaboration between the two scientists
has even allowed a refinement of the WATEX method.
After five years of purgatory,
the United Nations once again called on Alain Gachet.
Two mission were simultaneously undertaken.
The emergency mission to Kenya that we followed
and another mission of great importance,
the identification of aquifers
on a country-wide scale, Iraq.
Conducted by UNESCO for the European Union,
this Iraqi mission very sensitive on the diplomatic level
is making slow progress.
Iraq is a country divided between
Arab and Kurdish communities,
a country surrounded by hostile neighbors
and ravaged by 30 years of war,
a country in hydraulic stress
where water is a major strategic concern.
In 2015, the advance of the ISIL
and the massive influx of refugees make the Iraqi mission
which was at a standstill an absolute priority.
Just after his return from Kenya,
Alain Gachet organizes a meeting
with the Italian and American experts
commissioned by UNESCO.
So, it's not we are trying to find water
just for the refugees
but due to the diminished or the reduction
in surface water in Iraq in general
due to many reason either infrastructure upstream of Iraq,
climate change, population increase, agriculture,
Iraq has to find other water resources
to supplement the surface water.
The big problem of Iraq is that Iraq today
is going to hit a wall I mean in the use of water.
Meaning that Iraq is starting being not able
to meet the water needs
they are going to have in the future
because Iraq depends on more than 80%
of the water that enters from the upstream countries
through the Euphrates and Tigris River.
And Turkey and Iran, especially Turkey,
they are building a lot of dams there
regulating the Tigris and the Euphrates.
So, Iraq is the downstream country
and depends on these which is especially
you know, a political decision, a political management.
Water is a source of tension
in the whole Middle East
and more particularly within Iraq.
The conflict between the Kurds from the mountains
and the Arabs of the plains
has been going on for thousands of years.
One group has water and knows where it is,
the other group also has water
but they don't know where it is.
And the day we manage to find some
we hope that will calm things down
but it might on the contrary increase tensions.
because everything is so explosive there
we no longer have any idea of what things can lead to
so there are countries where in fact
finding water in certain circumstances
can be extremely dangerous.
But I consider that it's always a good idea for a country
to know where its natural resources are.
Because when a period of peace arrives, maybe in a century,
they'll at least know where they stand
in order to get going again.
If we cruise on an ocean of ignorance
we can't expect anything positive in the future.
The entire little team
is working full throttle.
Delphine Sevestre orders hundreds of satellite images
from the space agencies.
With optical and radar images
covering 70 square kilometers,
the geologist puts together a mosaic of the entire country,
a colossal task.
It's through this composite map
that Gachet applies his algorithm.
The first calculations isolate the signals
of the underground humidity
and permit to infer the presence of aquifers in Iraq
hereto for unknown.
On the eve of their departure,
Saud Amer prepares Gachet
for the presentation of their method
on a very delicate diplomatic terrain.
For the adoptive American who had to leave Iraq
during the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein
this is not a mission like any other.
His superiors have prohibited him
from setting foot on the ground
so we leave with the Italian hydrogeologist for Erbil,
the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan.
On site, Alain Gachet begins by inspecting
an ancient network of tunnels
that drain water towards the villages, the Kahrez.
(uptempo music)
These are dry stones.
The water's very nice when you stop stirring up the clay,
it's a water that's extremely pure
and totally drinkable.
The flow rate is weak but regular.
Must be about one liter per second
which isn't ridiculous.
A Kahrez is a hydraulic system
rooted in a very ancient tradition
going back 3,000 or 4,000 years
which is going to drain the water
falling in to this amphitheater.
This permitted many small mountain communities
to live in total autonomy
and this seriously displeased Saddam Hussein,
and took it upon himself to destroy the Kahrez
to force the populations to flee these villages
and go to the cities
where it was much easier to control them.
We take the road again
through the mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan.
As in Kenya, Alain Gachet is looking
for an aquifer recharge zone.
(uptempo music)
Under the river there are several accesses
to underground water.
There there's an environment
that's probably very rich in deep water.
The water can be exploited here without touching the river
with deeper reserves that must be considerable
because the altitude of those anticlines
that you see over there and are still covered with snow,
well, when the snow melts
it's going to infiltrate this sandstone which is porous
and will permit the circulation of the underground water.
And there we are in aquifers that are renewable.
It's a rock that's been chemically dissolved
by the carbonic acid transported by the snow
and has a very specific aspect.
As if I had soaked this block
in hydrochloric acid for example
the water has worked on it, acidic water impacted it.
The geological survey of Alain Gachet
confirms the presence of deep aquifers
in this strategic zone where tensions are high.
A zone where ISIL is expanding its domination
and forcing onto the road more than four million refugees
according to the HCR.
Camps are multiplying and the need for water is growing.
Gachet notes the GPS coordinates of the new refugee camps
and his scientific reflexes lead him to evaluate
the pertinence of the existing infrastructure.
(uptempo music)
Those are the camp's water reserves
so obviously it's a very strategic place, very protected.
The water arrives from that hill up there
directed by a pipeline.
And apparently the reserves are enough
to supply 11,000 refugees.
It's very good, fine quality.
Even in Erbil,
in the middle of the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan
a refugee camp has been set up.
The governor has to manage the sharing of the resource
between residents and refugees
and try to avoid tensions.
(uptempo music)
The Kurdish people have reacted very well
because it's not just water but also electricity,
medical services and education
that these refugees more and more numerous require.
We're not talking about a million
but 1,800,000 internally displaced and Syrian refugees.
But the reaction of the Kurdish population
has been very positive til now.
All right, so it was a bomber we saw passing over?
Exactly, it was a jet fighter.
While we are visiting Iraqi Kurdistan
a counteroffensive of Kurdish fighters against ISIL
is raging a few dozen kilometers
from the 10,000 refugees in the camp of Kaworgosk.
Tension is increasing.
And when I say that the context is not easy,
in Darfur I had my driver and two assistants
who were assassinated.
Not by the rebels but by the refugees themselves
under the pretext that they were poisoning
the water in their cisterns
simply because they put chlorine in to disinfect the tanks.
And with no warning, no explanation,
boom, boom, it's over.
I like to create wealth because of that.
Wealth is the only element that allows
a conflict to be diffused.
So my objective is not to find a little water
because a little water is war.
With lots of water we can begin imaging
that we can build peace.
However, water has always been
at the heart of conflict in the Middle East.
It's difficult to imagine that it can contribute
to peace in Iraq in such chaos.
The whole military strategy of ISIL
in Iraq and in Syria aims at one thing.
Controlling the dams on the Tigris and the Euphrates.
It began in February 2014
with the Fallujah Dam for example
in Iraqi territory where ISIL wanted to
exert pressure on the security
of the water supply downstream.
But also by closing these fuses provoking floods,
and thus, discontent among the population upstream.
Holding the dams also permits
giving electricity to people,
thereby, putting on your side certain populations
who are perhaps reluctant to support this
radical Islamist movement.
Control of the Mosul and the Haditha Dams
is a key element in ISIL's strategy of conquest.
Iraqi authorities alerted me
that if these two dams are destroyed
Iraq will practically no longer exist.
Summer 2015, back in Tarascon,
the last stage of the WATEX operation begins.
Alain Gachet processes the geological data
collected in Iraqi Kurdistan.
Saud Amer studies the internal functionings of the aquifers.
He determines the quantity and quality of the water,
its age and the speed with which it's recharged
to ensure sustainable exploitation.
In exclusivity, Alain Gachet reveals to us
the result of his work on Iraq.
This is the unpublished map.
It's unique.
All of Iraq has been WATEXed.
And there we have a pure signature of water.
Where does this water come from?
It can't come from the Mesopotamian basin,
it isn't connected to the streams and rivers
that would arrive here.
It doesn't rain here, it's really the western desert.
Therefore, this water comes from down deep.
There's probably a huge source of water
that's asleep somewhere down there.
(calm music)
Water comes from Saudi Arabia,
it's going to gradually infiltrate the Mesopotamian basin.
And migrates 700 kilometers
to arrive at the base of this fault to here.
And there is pressure,
there is practically one kilometer of head,
there's so much pressure here.
That water is going to seep all along
the length of the fault
and that's what we see on the radar image.
That means that there are probably
very large water reserves here
under high pressure waiting for us.
Here we are in a full-fledged cross border process.
So there there is a real potential for the future
independent of the Tigris and Euphrates,
independent of the policy of huge dams conducted by Turkey
which has full control of the Iraqi economy
with surface water.
With this they'd be free of the Turkish dominance
to rebuild a new Iraq according to a new paradigm.
UNESCO summons the whole team
to a secret spot outside of Iraq.
The hydrological adviser to the Iraqi prime minister
and an expert from the Ministry of Agriculture
and Natural Resources arrived from Baghdad.
For UNESCO's project head Andreas Luke,
the result goes beyond what he hoped for.
We get special authorization to film.
Let's make this as the base map.
This is the WATEX map, last well we dig there is
with no signal.
On the north of (mumbles) up to the Syrian border
it's a beautiful moist area,
means that good soils and probably good aquifer too.
Yeah, it's a good aquifer.
Here.
And then part three is there.
I also choose one, choose one.
So, Mr. Sedek now,
the Iraqi army has to control this area.
The Iraqi army will.
Has to, has to control that.
Not in Turkey hands.
This information then should be kept secret.
For the moment, yes.
For the moment.
As a result of this meeting,
strategic objectives are defined.
Five boreholes over 1,000 meters in depth
will be put in place.
UNESCO official, Dr. Luke suggest I publish.
There are results that are exceptional.
Geological cross sections that nobody has ever seen before.
It's up to me to say yes or no
because when we put these allocations out there
we'll have the Saudis,
the Turks and the Iranians all over us.
So, let's do our job all the way through
and when we've done everything we can,
perhaps if the political situation permits it,
we'll publish.
I don't know my fame to publications
but to my results, it's discovery that interests me.
After all these months of work,
Alain Gachet, Saud Amer and the whole team
grant themselves a moment of optimism.
This incredible map,
the product of a humanitarian emergency,
is now the instrument for the rebuilding of an Iraq
that would no longer be centered
on the Tigris and Euphrates,
an alternative to the saline ground water polluted by war.
But also, a way to no longer depend on dams
controlled by the Turks and by ISIL.
In the foreseeable future if political will
and investments follow,
this means that there will be water for everybody.
I got into the great water war.
I could say I waited into it up to my chin,
up to my ears.
I put my soul into it but I'm going all the way.
Free and cross disciplinary minds
have always been the motors of progress.
The great explorers drew maps of the seas and continents
but the depths of the Earth remain little known.
No complete map of the planet's deep aquifers exists.
Alain Gachet with his algorithm
and access to a super computer
would only take a few years of calculating to make that map.
The discovery of water gives power
to the one who controls it
but can we refuse the discovery under the pretext
that we don't know what politicians will do with it?
In about 2030, one person out of two
will suffer from a lack of water.
Science offers a chain of solutions
that it would be wise not to neglect.
With his invention, Alain Gachet is one link in this chain.
(calm music)
That's the risk.
(calm music)
No, everything is okay.
I want to taste the water.
(laughs)
(calm music)
(speaking in foreign language)