(Extract from the introduction)brThe main objective of the hydrogeological appraisal was to determine whether the potable water demand of the proposed settlements could be supplied from groundwater sources. Further objectives were to determine the best methods of groundwater abstraction and evaluate the costs of any necessary installations. The main problem with attaining these objectives has been the weakness of the existing data base. Thus, though some work relevant to the hydrogeology of the region had been done in the past, much of the data appears to have been lost. Particular examples of this are the boreholes drilled by the Russians, for which all records seem untraceable. Further, even such scant data as exists has never been systematically analysed and compiled. The approach of this study has been to collect all the published informationparticularly the various development reports, to interview the personnel of various agencies concerned with groundwater work in Somalia and to conduct a field survey to collect geological and hydrogeological data. All this information has been carefully processed and compiled to obtain a regional picture of the groundwater systems. The Project Area itself, for which basically no subsurface data exists, was then viewed within that regional context. The results obtained are not fully conclusive but they are strongly indicative.