Plaquette : Making the Senegal river navigable - IAGF 6ème session

Initially wide. th is open ing increased now ta The breach was opened on the spit of Barbarie on 4 Octobe r 2003, when the river was in fu ll flood . The aim was to lessen the pressure of water on t he city of Sa int-Louis and proted the property of 70,000 people, by increasing t he discharges of the Senegal River into the Atlantic Ocean. This fragile spit of land 35 kilometres long and a few hundred metres wide had been breached several times naturally in the past. As confirmed by Luc Descroix and Tamsir Ndiaye, the problem does not stem from the necessary and carefully considered decision taken at the t ime, but due to the absence of any accompanying measure, leading to the considerable progression of the breach. Initially 4 m wide , th is open ing increased to 200 m wide two days later and then to 1.6 km in 2006 and now to 6 km. 4 Detober 2003 : 4 m wide 6 Detober 2003: 200 m wide 10 Henceforth the breach to a great extent structures the dynamics of the water in the estuary, with the sea advancing into the coastal regionswith dramatic consequences: the 1055 of life of many fishermen fo llowing accidents, the disappearance of certain habitats, etc. To stop it from widen ing, Luc Descraix emphasised the need to preserve t he transit of sediments fram the Mauritanian coast to mainta in th is natur al process fram north to south . As fo r t he SOGENAV*, represented by Mamadou Faye, its Managing Diredor, it deciared that works to stabilise the breach w ith breakwaters had been recommended in the preliminary designs of t he navigation project. in order to dredge an access channel thraugh the breach. Another option woul d be to f ill part of the breach and t hen stabilise it. *the Senegal River Operating and Navigation Management Company