Water Underground Talks: Specialists share their passion and key lessons around groundwater

Groundwater – the world’s largest freshwater store – is a life-sustaining resource that supplies water to billions of people, plays a central part in irrigated agriculture, and influences the health of humans and ecosystems. Water Underground is a European Geosciences Union (EGU) blog written by a global collective of hydrogeology researchers and is intended for water resource professionals, academics and anyone interested in groundwater research, teaching and supervision. The blog, started by Tom Gleeson, Associate Professor, University of Victoria, Canada, is also hosted on the American Geophysical Union (AGU) blogosphere.

Recently, Water Underground launched a first season of video interviews titled Water Underground Talks. In these interviews, groundwater experts from all around the world share their passion for this hidden resource and talk about their latest research. The aim of the series is to share a critical yet positive and forward-looking perspective. Through the interviews, the aim is to also inspire students and young professionals, and provide open questions for onward reflection and research. Water Underground Talks is an initiative of the University of Victoria, Canada, and University of Pisa, Italy, the latter represented by Viviana Re, Assistant Professor. Many partners of the Groundwater Solutions Initiative for Policy and Practice (GRIPP) have contributed to the interviews in their personal capacity. The International Groundwater Resources Assessment Centre (IGRAC) has been responsible for editing the videos.

Interviews of Season 1:

Veena Srinivasan (Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment, India): Data innovation and visualization of an invisible, common-pool resource.
Debra Perrone (University of California, Santa Barbara, USA): Leveraging hidden data to promote our understanding of groundwater sustainability.
Joanna Doummar (American University of Beirut, Lebanon): Characterization of karst systems in semi-arid Mediterranean regions – From monitoring to modeling.
Şebnem Arslan (Ankara University, Turkey): Tracing the exciting underground journey of water molecules with isotopes.
Dongmei Han (Chinese Academy of Sciences, China): How overexploitation of groundwater has resulted in seawater intrusion and land subsidence in the North China Plain.
Alice Aureli (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization [UNESCO], Paris, France): Transboundary aquifers and the new initiatives to raise the profile of groundwater internationally.
Juan Castilla-Rho (University of Technology Sydney, Australia): Participatory modeling, social simulation and decision making for groundwater resources management.
Inge de Graaf (Wageningen University, the Netherlands): The environmental limit of groundwater pumping.
Daniel Olago (University of Nairobi, Kenya): Addressing challenges in sourcing for development and management of groundwater supplies in arid and semi-arid lands.
Rim Trabelsi (Laboratory of Radio-Analysis and Environment, Tunisia): Hydrogeology in arid and semi-arid environments and isotope geochemistry.
Karen G. Villholth (International Water Management Institute [IWMI], South Africa): Groundwater in a changing world – How we can secure the benefits.
Season finale: Looking back, looking forward. Wrap up of Season 1.