Invisible water: the importance of good groundwater governance and management

Megdal, Sharon B.

doi:10.1038/s41545-018-0015-9

Cited by 58 publications

(34 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…Moving from groundwater use to resource management, a lack of sufficient data to inform appropriate groundwater management was identified across case study countries, reflecting a region-wide gap in groundwater monitoring systems and data [99]. With data and information acknowledged to be critical for effective groundwater governance [15], there is an urgent need to invest in monitoring and improve the quantity and quality of groundwater information, including through approaches such as remote sensing [99]. For the WASH sector, there is an opportunity for service authorities and providers to play a direct role monitoring the resources on which they rely, and to proactively coordinate (for information sharing and strategy development) with agencies responsible for groundwater resource management.…”

Section: Data Gaps and Monitoringmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Groundwater as a Source of Drinking Water in Southeast Asia and the Pacific: A Multi-Country Review of Current Reliance and Resource Concerns

Carrard

Foster

Willetts

2019

Water

226

101

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Groundwater is widely acknowledged to be an important source of drinking water in low-income regions, and it, therefore, plays a critical role in the realization of the human right to water. However, the proportion of households using groundwater compared with other sources is rarely quantified, with national and global datasets more focused on facilities—rather than resources—used. This is a significant gap in knowledge, particularly in light of efforts to expand water services in line with the inclusive and integrated agenda of the Sustainable Development Goals. Understanding the prevalence of groundwater reliance for drinking is critical for those involved in water services planning and management, so they can better monitor and advocate for management of water resources that supports sustainable services for households. This paper contributes data that can be used to strengthen the integration of resource considerations within water service delivery and inform the work of development partners supporting this area. We approach this issue from two perspectives. Firstly, we collate data on the proportion of households using groundwater as their primary drinking water source for 10 Southeast Asian and Pacific nations, finding an average of 66% (range of 17–93% for individual countries) of households in urban areas and 60% (range of 22–95%) of households in rural areas rely on groundwater for drinking. Together, these constitute 79% of the total population across the case study countries. Secondly, we review current and emerging groundwater resource concerns within each country, using a systems thinking approach to assess how groundwater resource issues influence household water services. Findings support the case for governments and development agencies to strengthen engagement with groundwater resource management as foundational for achieving sustainable water services for all.

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Section: Data Gaps and Monitoringmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It is important to maintain the quality of raw water used for domestic purposes in order to protect human health and avoid expensive water treatment. Groundwater quality has a major bearing on the cost of using it for different purposes [15].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Groundwater as a Source of Drinking Water in Southeast Asia and the Pacific: A Multi-Country Review of Current Reliance and Resource Concerns

Carrard

Foster

Willetts

2019

Water

226

101

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Although the distributed nature of groundwater provides opportunity to incorporate local social, cultural, and political preferences, it also opens the door to fragmentation. A recent survey of the United States found that groundwater governance was fragmented, with vast differences amongst states and their management priorities (e.g., consideration of ecosystems), establishment of legal frameworks, and capacity to implement and enforce policies (Megdal, 2018;Megdal et al, 2015). The Groundwater Governance Project has revealed similar findings when looking globally (Villholth & Conti, 2018) although the European Union groundwater directive and groundwater framework directive (EU, 2000) shows that nations with different backgrounds and priorities can agree on common policy and legal frameworks.…”

Section: Implementing Groundwater Sustainability With Governance and Managementmentioning

confidence: 99%

Global Groundwater Sustainability, Resources, and Systems in the Anthropocene

Gleeson

Cuthbert

Ferguson

et al. 2020

Annu. Rev. Earth Planet. Sci.

256

125

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Groundwater is a crucial resource for current and future generations, but it is not being sustainably used in many parts of the world. The objective of this review is to provide a clear portrait of global-scale groundwater sustainability, systems, and resources in the Anthropocene to inspire a pivot toward more sustainable pathways of groundwater use. We examine groundwater from three different but related perspectives of sustainability science, natural resource governance and management, and Earth System science. An Earth System approach highlights the connections between groundwater and the other parts of the system and how these connections are impacting, or are impacted by, groundwater pumping. Groundwater is the largest store of unfrozen freshwater on Earth and is heterogeneously connected to many Earth System processes on different timescales. We propose a definition of groundwater sustainability that has a direct link with observable data, governance, and management as well as the crucial functions and services of groundwater. ▪ Groundwater is depleted or contaminated in some regions; it is ubiquitously distributed, which, importantly, makes it broadly accessible but also slow and invisible and therefore challenging to govern and manage. ▪ Regional differences in priorities, hydrology, politics, culture, and economic contexts mean that different governance and management tools are important, but a global perspective can support higher level international policies in an increasingly globalized world that require broader analysis of interconnections and knowledge transfer between regions. ▪ A coherent, overarching framework of groundwater sustainability is more important for groundwater governance and management than the concepts of safe yield, renewability, depletion, or stress.

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“…We believe that successful implementation of this approach is especially important to subsurface water resources. Groundwater is directly connected with both surface water resources and terrestrial ecosystems at the same, but hidden from rapid observation [34]. Moreover, due to restricted access to direct measurements, groundwater monitoring systems are often represented by relatively small observation nets, where kriging techniques are also the most powerful.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An Automated Approach to Groundwater Quality Monitoring—Geospatial Mapping Based on Combined Application of Gaussian Process Regression and Bayesian Information Criterion

Shadrin

Nikitin

Tregubova

et al. 2021

Water

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Sustainable management of the environment is based on the preservation of natural resources, first of all, freshwater—both surface and groundwater—from exhaustion and contamination. Thus, development of adequate monitoring solutions, including fast and adaptive modelling approaches, are of high importance. Recent progress in machine learning techniques provide an opportunity to improve the prediction accuracy of the spatial distribution of properties of natural objects and to automate all stages of this process to exclude uncertainties caused by handcrafting. We propose a technique to construct the weighted Water Quality Index (WQI) and the spatial prediction map of the WQI in tested area. In particular, WQI is calculated using dimensionality reduction technique (Principal Component Analysis), and spatial map of WQI is constructed using Gaussian Process Regression with automatic kernel structure selection using Bayesian Information Criterion (BIC). We validate our approach on a new dataset for groundwater quality in the New Moscow region, where groundwater is mostly used for drinking purposes. According to estimated WQI values, groundwater quality across the study region is relatively high, with few points, less than 0.5% of all observations, severely contaminated. Estimated WQIs then were used to construct spatial distribution models, GPR-BIC approach was compared with ordinary Kriging (OK), Universal Kriging (UK) with exponential, Gaussian, polynomial and periodic kernels. Quality of models was assessed using cross-validation scheme, according to which BIC-GPR approach showed better performance on average with 15% higher R2 score comparing to other Kriging models. We show that the proposed geospatial interpolation is a potentially powerful and adaptable tool for predicting the spatial distribution of properties of natural resources.

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Invisible water: the importance of good groundwater governance and management

Cited by 58 publications

References 7 publications

Groundwater as a Source of Drinking Water in Southeast Asia and the Pacific: A Multi-Country Review of Current Reliance and Resource Concerns

Groundwater as a Source of Drinking Water in Southeast Asia and the Pacific: A Multi-Country Review of Current Reliance and Resource Concerns

Global Groundwater Sustainability, Resources, and Systems in the Anthropocene

An Automated Approach to Groundwater Quality Monitoring—Geospatial Mapping Based on Combined Application of Gaussian Process Regression and Bayesian Information Criterion

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