**4. Conclusions**

The variability of precipitation is an important development factor and translates directly into a need for water storage. In Africa, the existing variability and insufficient capacities to manage it are at the root of much of the prevailing poverty and food insecurity. These continents are expected to experience the greatest negative impacts of climate change. By making water available at times when it would not be naturally available, water storage can significantly increase agricultural and economic productivity and improve human well-being. Water storage capacity per person is often cited as an indicator of water security and a measure of large and small scale water infrastructure development [45]. Well-planned and well-managed water storage infrastructure is important to provide a safe and secure water supply for households, agriculture and industry.

In the past, water resources planning has tended to focus on large dams, but dams are only one of many possible water storage options. Other options include natural wetlands, underground aquifers, ponds and small reservoirs. The type of storage to be used in a given location should be suitable for the intended use. Under the right circumstances poverty reduction may benefit by the contribution of each option, while neither is a complete solution since their benefits carry costs and location altering influences poverty reduction in a different way.

There has been very little systematic analysis of alternative storage options in terms of their role in climate change adaptation and poverty reduction. While large dams are the result of central planning and are part of an integral scheme, smaller dams, which are not, result in a piecemeal structure based on local initiatitive and the resulting non-integrated minimal planning based on incomplete data management, erroneous local stakeholder and water resource authorities' interactive communication leading to the expected result of non-optimal investments.

Improved water storage capacity and water security are particularly required in climatic zones characterized by low rainfall and high rainfall variability, such as Mali, Senegal and Mauritania. One of the purposes of water storage in the Senegal River basin is the production of hydroelectricity. Future population growth, combined with climate change, will increase the importance of water storage in many developing countries such as OMVS member countries. However, as water resources are increasingly used and climate variability increases, planning will become even more difficult. Without a better understanding of which types of storage are best used under specific agroecological and social conditions, and without much more systematic planning, there is a risk that many water storage investments will not produce the expected benefits. In some cases, they can even make the most unpleasant impacts of climate change worse.

The need for water storage to support socio-economic development in the countries bordering the Senegal River cannot be overstated. Infrastructure development and management strategy applied in water inbestment is the basic OMVS policy aimed at the support of economic development. Within the OMVS framework these three countries have already invested a lot in the development of the Manantali, Diama and Félou water storage infrastructures in the Senegal river and as there clearly *Water Resources Management and Hydraulic Infrastructures in the Senegal River Basin… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.105633*

exists more potential for additional infrastructures since these existing dams cannot capture and control all the potentially available water, the OMVS plans for its future exploitment via the programmed dam projects of Koukoutamba, Gourbassi, Bouréya, Balassa and Badoumbé.

Current research aims to better understand water resources and their storage under different social and ecological conditions. This will provide information on the potential impacts of climate change on water supply and demand; the social and environmental impacts of different storage options; the implications of scaling up small-scale interventions; and the reasons for the success/failure of past storage programs. Systematic methods for evaluating the suitability and effectiveness of different storage options are being developed to aid in planning and to facilitate comparison of storage options, individually and within systems.
