Some challenges for reaching a groundwater flow understanding to manage water and environmental responses

Abstract

<p>Groundwater flow understanding is a must in any study related to sustainable water management and in preventing or controlling negative environmental responses due to changes in the groundwater regime. Indeed, further developing of methods, terminology, concepts, teaching and research may benefit from considering relevant collective scientific knowledge base. Disregarding psychological and social constraints, several perceptions have been found to prevent reaching to desirable groundwater flow understanding to backup adequate decision making, among them the following three may be stated. Firstly, not all hydrological methodology provides with adequate reference to arrive at the desired groundwater flow understanding. There is a groundwater evaluation method that is usually applied in developed countries based on long periods of daily hydrological data to achieve a reliable water-balance which, however, fails to provide with related processes as groundwater quality changes, soil subsidence, ecosystem functioning, transboundary flow conditions, among others. Disregarding the lack of obtaining reliable and adequate data in time and space in developing countries, the water-balance is the recommended methodology to be applied to seek an understanding of the relation of groundwater with other components of the environment. Secondly, concepts as aquifer (water + rock) provide a further challenge to achieve a groundwater flow understanding due to the quasi-static view it provides for groundwater management. An aquifer is often strongly related to the water-balance concept where natural vertical components of flow are usually neglected. Here, inconsistent terms as overexploitation, scarcity, transmissivity, among others unnecessarily emerge. Thirdly, further education and research is under strong constrains to reach desirable teaching and research to enhance science on Water Security. Existing capacity building in groundwater in top-ranking universities (UK, Canada) has been disappearing or, is under threat, not only directly on groundwater flow systems, but as research in hydrogeology as a subject. Other universities have a latent (France, Spain) capacity building in groundwater flow systems; in many, there is an absence on the topic. It is to note that several universities (Hungary, China) are growing a sound groundwater flow systems capacity building. There are universities (Mexico) where research on groundwater flow systems is carried out by interested hydrogeologists who wait to have institutional support that might even reach government organizations. Groundwater management related government offices required to enhance the acknowledgement of the importance of groundwater remembering that more than 80% of the water supply in many countries is obtained from that source. It should be remembered that groundwater intake of the ecosystem is almost fully related to this source, which needs to be fully understood to achieve a reliable ecological yield.</p><p> </p>