Water and Peace

In countries where scarce surface water causes disease and conflict, an abundance of water can bring peace.

With the growing impact of climate change, an estimated one third of the world's population lacks fresh water. By 2050 it could well be over half, some five billion people.

Alain Gachet, known as the "Wizard of H2O", explores and unravels the interrelated humanitarian, environmental, scientific and geo-political concerns generated by water scarcity. An archaeological explorer and mining engineer, Gachet has developed a technology (using Nasa satellite imagery) to identify massive aquifers beneath the earth's surface using a mathematical algorithm that could completely change our future.

As well as exploring our current environmental crisis (and offering some solutions), Gachet gives an account of his extraordinary adventures as a mining engineer both before and since he became an expert in deep groundwater - in Congo; in Libya, where he has an audience with Colonel Gaddafi; in Darfur, where he works alongside refugee agencies to provide water to vast camps, often at risk to his life; in Iraq and in Kurdistan, where he encounters both the Peshmerga and the Yazidi people; and in the Turkana region of Kenya, where his discoveries of vast underground reservoirs have been transformative to the lives of the people in an area plagued by drought and disputes over livestock for generations.

Gachet discusses the critical issues of climate change and desertification, melting glaciers and rising sea levels, but this is also a book about the people he meets in some of the world's most challenging zones of conflict and deprivation. Ultimately this is a book of hope as we explore some of the solutions for the future.

"If the quest to find high-quality water for millions has a superstar, that person is Alain Gachet. Living a truly adventurous life in a scientific field where underground water is hidden and elusive, he has advanced the science and, at the same time, uniquely served society. This is an exciting story of risk, daring, hydrophilanthropy, and reflection on one of the most important challenges facing humankind."
DAVID K. KREAMER, President, International Association of Hydrogeologists

ALAIN GACHET, CEO and Founder of RTI Exploration, born in Madagascar in 1951, is a nuclear physicist specialized in Quantum Mechanics, a mining engineer, petroleum geologist and geophysicist. He has worked as an international expert for the United Nations and the USGS on the 'Science for Diplomacy' programme.

After working for twenty years in oil exploration, Alain Gachet made a major change in shifting from oil to water. He created RTI (Radar Technologies International) in 1999, to explore deep aquifers all over the world, using a secret algorithm based on quantum mechanics, geology and geophysics.

He now seeks deep potable water in war-torn areas in Africa and the Middle East and is responsible for several major aquifer discoveries in Iraq, Sudan, Chad, Niger, Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia, South Africa, and more recently in Costa Rica and Chile for the purposes of reforestation.

In December 2014, Alain Gachet was appointed Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur. In 2016, recommended by NASA, he was inducted into the Space Technology Hall of Fame, a highly selective and discreet club of scientific humanists, at the Space Foundation in Colorado Springs, USA, for having significantly improved the lives of millions of people around the world using fundamental physics and space technologies.