In a context of societal development and increasing demand for natural resources, human needs and environmental impacts must be considered together in order to sustainably manage these resources, especially with regard to groundwater resources. The issues become more challenging to solve considering their uneven and complex distribution. Sustainable groundwater resource management involves adopting integrated approaches that take into consideration interconnections among the different components of the hydrological cycle and understanding groundwater flow systems through the identification of governing processes and conditions from the local to regional and basin-scales, transcending administrative boundaries. This means considering not only the availability and quality of water resources, but also ensuring the preservation of related ecosystems. Moreover, the impacts on groundwater resources, ecosystems and societies due to ongoing climate change should also be considered.
The objective of this session is to gather case studies and scientific contributions connected to sustainable management of groundwater and its protection from degradation and deterioration, e.g., due to over-exploitation, competition for water resources, natural or anthropogenic contamination, and climate change. Contributions are invited, but not limited to, the following subjects: (i) the use of environmental tracers (chemical species and isotopes) for investigating natural processes and human impacts on water resources, (ii) the assessment of hydrogeological budgets for the evaluation of water availability, and (iii) methods for characterizing groundwater flow systems, and preventing, managing and mitigating harmful environmental impacts related to groundwater, as well as (iv) identifying major existing challenges and critical issues.
The Regional Groundwater Flow Commission (RGFC) of the International Association of Hydrogeologists (IAH) is sponsoring the session.