Credit: SADC Groundwater Management Institute.

By James Sauramba
PRETORIA, South Africa, Mar 22 2022 (IPS)

Groundwater is invisible and yet its impact is visible everywhere – this infinite resource provides almost half of all drinking water worldwide. About 40% of water for irrigated agriculture and about 1/3 of water required for industry is from groundwater resources. Despite these impressive facts, groundwater remains invisible and less prominent compared to surface water.

This year, 2022, the World Water Day puts groundwater resources on the spotlight as the day is celebrated under the theme: “Groundwater – making the invisible visible”. As we celebrate World Water Day, it is important that we pause and ask ourselves this question, “what are we doing to ensure the sustainable development and management of this precious resource or are we doing enough?”

Used sustainably, groundwater could provide potable water for the estimated 40% of the SADC region’s estimated 345 million inhabitants that currently lack access to safe drinking water and sanitation services. It could also alleviate pressure on the region’s surface water and help communities endure the nowadays very frequent and severe dry spells

Groundwater plays a critical role in providing water and food security and improving livelihoods of many in the SADC region, especially vulnerable communities in the rural areas and in the poor urban settlements.

“With the worsening impacts of climate change, we need to recognize that groundwater could be a catalyst for economic and social development in the SADC region. Furthermore, groundwater could play a significant role in sustainable development and building resilience – if sustainably developed and managed” says Eng. James Sauramba, SADC-GMI Executive Director.

The Sustainable Development Goal 6 underpins ensuring access to water and sanitation for all. If sustainably developed, groundwater could be instrumental in the achievement of SDG 6 as set out in the United Nations agenda 2030.

Eng. Sauramba continues to say, as climate change impacts intensify and many people turn to groundwater for their primary water supply, it becomes even more critical that we work together to sustainably manage this precious resource.

Used sustainably, groundwater could provide potable water for the estimated 40% of the SADC region’s estimated 345 million inhabitants that currently lack access to safe drinking water and sanitation services. It could also alleviate pressure on the region’s surface water and help communities endure the nowadays very frequent and severe dry spells.

Communication pertaining to groundwater related issues is key to making groundwater visible. Stakeholder participation, shared knowledge, and informed decision-making are integral cornerstones of good water governance and can never be over emphasized.

It is important that we seek innovative ways to create awareness and communicate groundwater issues. Although some progress has been achieved in this area in the last five years, more still needs to be accomplished.

The SADC region’s estimated current extraction rates of around 2,500 m3 per capita per year represent only 1.5% of the renewable groundwater resources available. This means that groundwater remains largely untapped at a time when the gap between water demand and availability is growing drastically.

The Earth’s population of nearly 8 billion in 2020 is expected to reach 11 billion by 2100. Humans will have to learn to produce sufficient food without destroying the soil, water, and climate. This has been dubbed the greatest challenge humanity has faced. Sustainable management of groundwater is at the heart of the solution.

Credit: SADC Groundwater Management Institute.

SADC-GMI strives to making groundwater visible

SADC Groundwater Management Institute (SADC-GMI) as the centre of excellence in promoting equitable and sustainable groundwater management in the SADC region since 2016 has to date implemented various impactful small scale infrastructure development projects in 10 SADC Member States to support the development and management of this finite resource.

The projects ranged from groundwater monitoring and evaluation systems, community water supply schemes, exploration of deep aquifers, and groundwater mapping and development. These projects contributed to enhancing water security and improved livelihoods for the benefiting communities. Approximately 93000 beneficiaries (of which 53% were women) across the SADC region benefitted from the interventions.

Transboundary cooperation among Member States sharing groundwater resources was also promoted through undertaking research to generate knowledge in six of the estimated 30 transboundary aquifers in the SADC region.

Three new boreholes were drilled in Chongwe to promote sustainable groundwater development and reduce the devastating effects of water shortage for approximately 12,000 residents. The project augmented the existing cluster of boreholes while easing the water shortage in the area.

Again, SADC-GMI implemented a similar project in Muchocolate in the Matutuine district of Maputo Province where safe and clean drinking water was provided for approximately 2 000 people and their livestock. Another milestone was recorded in the Kingdom of Eswatini where a groundwater monitoring project was completed. The project involved 10 monitoring sites, four of which use renewable energy to pump the water.

2nd Phase – Sustainable Groundwater Management in SADC Member States

Since mid-November 2021, SADC-GMI embarked on implementation of the 2nd Phase of the Sustainable Groundwater Management in SADC Member States project that will again put groundwater on the spotlight.

As the results, SADC-GMI will continue to engage SADC Member States to sustainably develop groundwater resources in the region to improve the livelihoods of the vulnerable communities, especially those heavily dependent on groundwater and address groundwater challenges facing the region.

Excerpt:

"Our wells and springs are drying up, and as a consequence of this depletion, our groundwater quality is also deteriorating" Credit: Manipadma Jena/IPS

By Rachita Vora and Smarinita Shetty
MUMBAI, India, Oct 29 2019 (IPS)

A majority of India’s water problems are those relating to groundwater—water that is found beneath the earth’s surface. This is because we are the largest user of groundwater in the world, and therefore highly dependent on it.

At just over 260 cubic km per year, our country uses 25 percent of all groundwater extracted globally, ahead of USA and China. And because 70 percent of the water supply in agriculture today is groundwater, it will remain the lifeline of India’s water supplies for years to come.

Despite this, we have an extremely poor understanding of groundwater, which impacts both policy and practice. In our conversation with Himanshu Kulkarni and Uma Aslekar of Advanced Centre for Water Resources and Development (ACWADAM), they walk us through some of the reasons why this is the case.

Why is it that we neither understand nor prioritise groundwater in our policies?

This is largely because of two reasons: Groundwater is invisible—it is literally not visible to the eye because it is well below the ground. What is out of sight, is usually out of mind! Groundwater is also a highly complex subject that is governed by many ‘conditionalities’. It is this ignorance, by both users and people in governance, that has contributed to the situation we find ourselves in today.

Moreover, groundwater education still focuses largely on ‘exploring’ new sources of groundwater that will lead to the ‘development’ of groundwater resources. The subject of groundwater in aquifers is often considered quite complex as compared to providing groundwater supplies from wells, even if these wells continue to become deeper and deeper as groundwater levels decline. In the gap between supply on one side, and demand on the other, we are losing out on components of groundwater management from many systems of education delivery.

We need a demystified but correct understanding of aquifers (underground rocks that are sources of groundwater), their properties and how they are used, so that we can make the critical mass of users and decision makers understand them and act on them appropriately.

We neither understand nor prioritise the groundwater issue because what is out of sight, is usually also out of mind. | Illustration – Priya Dali

What will that take?

We at ACWADAM conduct training programmes for various organisations and government agencies. If one is explaining the concept of aquifers, for instance, the semantics, pedagogy, and the delivery of training on the whole will need to be different for different stakeholders.

If one has to explain aquifers to a groundwater agency, hydrogeologists, or people with a technical background, one will need to use a different language than that when one is speaking to communities and end users.

Similarly, the lexicon on groundwater will need to be completely different if one is talking to decision makers and technocrats, who have no technical knowledge on the subject. The ability to clearly articulate and communicate the groundwater problem and the possible solutions, is therefore, the key to implementing processes of groundwater management.

If you were to state, simply, the primary issues when it comes to groundwater in India, what would they be?

There are basically three issues. The first is depletion. Our wells and springs are drying up, and as a consequence of this depletion, our groundwater quality is also deteriorating.

When there is less water in an aquifer, the concentration of ions increases. When aquifers get recharged sufficiently, contaminants are diluted. Whether it is groundwater use in agriculture or in domestic supply, serious issues of contamination like fluoride and arsenic, which are no longer isolated cases and are found across large regions of the country, must be addressed. This contamination is the second problem, and it is very often related to the first problem of depletion.

We need a demystified but correct understanding of aquifers (underground rocks that are sources of groundwater), their properties and how they are used, so that we can make the critical mass of users and decision makers understand them and act on them appropriately

The third, which is not readily perceived as a problem, is that of the increasing disconnect between groundwater and ecosystems, particularly due to the environmental impact of depletion and contamination. As a consequence of large-scale groundwater usage for human needs, the value of the service that aquifers provided to the environment—say to river flows—has significantly reduced. How does one then make the connection between the environment and groundwater, especially when that connection has been altered and severed?

Therefore, we need an integrated approach. Even if in one area, depletion seems to be the biggest problem, we need an approach that addresses contamination, and recognises the ecosystem role of groundwater in resolving the problem of depletion. Doing one and not the other will not help resolve any one problem in its entirety.

How then, do we solve the problem in its entirety, at scale?

Broad brush approaches implemented at scale will not work. Let us consider an example: you have a new idea to solve a groundwater problem, and it has five critical elements. The district you are working in has 20 talukas. You cannot implement all five components of your idea in those 20 talukas. So, what will you do? You will likely take the easiest option and leave the rest. This doesn’t work out since the complex natures of aquifers and human behaviours cannot be solved with a broad brush of a simple, big ticket solution. You need an appropriate (scientifically validated) and acceptable (communities must be able to agree and co-operate in implementation) solution to make impact.

Alternatively, you might choose to implement all five ideas in one village of each taluka, where they are possible to implement. But then scaling-out such solutions becomes challenging. There are thus no big-ticket solutions in groundwater. All the same, it is necessary to work at the micro level even though it is challenging to engage with policy makers who would rather have groundwater solutions that run across large swathes of the landscape; many of them would prefer solutions at scale that create a buzz in the short-term rather than an impact in the longer-term.

Given these inherent challenges, what is it that India needs to do?

If we are to address our water problems, there are a few things that the country needs:

Aggregate micro-level solutions to construct a larger picture that can inform policy

Groundwater in India is rather disaggregated in terms of its occurrence, usage, and problems. Hence, we need disaggregated approaches leading to customised solutions that are appropriate to locations and situations of groundwater problems. Further, it is important to pull together these smaller solution pieces to construct a larger picture. This is the reason why we need practitioners who have worked on the ground and attempted to solve the problems, to be actively involved in policy framing; else, things will not change and the divide between policies, and practices on groundwater management will only continue to widen further.

Stronger public institutions dedicated to groundwater management

Additionally, we have an institutional vacuum when it comes to dealing with groundwater. Let us consider an example from Maharashtra. More than 80 percent of Maharashtra’s rural drinking water supply comes from groundwater wells. Protecting and sustaining this source is a function of how groundwater is used in agriculture so that drinking water supply in the villages of the state remains secure.

The Ground Water Survey and Development Agency (GSDA) falls under the ambit of the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation. It has little to do with water used for agriculture—which accounts for less than 5 percent of water used in rural Maharashtra—and hence cannot influence policy or usage with respect to that. Organisations like GSDA must be strengthened and encouraged to engage in partnership models of working with grassroots organisations that are working on community-level water management.

This is just one example of how a lack of institutional thinking impacts solutions. Many states don’t even have a GSDA equivalent. Strengthening agencies dealing with groundwater becomes quite important in this regard.

To demystify the science and involve people in solution-making

Some important questions we need to consider include: How does one get people to participate and cooperate in efforts dealing with groundwater management? How do communities convert competition and conflict to participation and cooperation? Our experience at ACWADAM is that when you undertake an effort in demystifying science, and involve communities and committed people in the development of that science, you can achieve improved decision making at any level. And once you achieve this, your outcomes automatically change even though they are often not ideal. However, even such imperfect outcomes significantly enhance water security in regions that depend on groundwater.

More attention and investment in promoting partnerships and collaborations

There is a grave need for infusing interdisciplinary science in the processes of groundwater management and governance. Only if and when such science is made to bear upon achieving decentralised water governance, will we be able to solve many problems on groundwater. It is important, therefore, to realise that no single agency holds the key to problem identification and resolution in the sector of groundwater. Hence, catalysing collaborations that integrate the many disciplines required to develop sustainable groundwater management solutions, is needed; such partnerships must form the backbone of public efforts to protect, restore, and manage groundwater resources.

Rachita Vora is Co-founder and Director at IDR. Before this, she led the Dasra Girl Alliance, a Rs. 250 crore multi-stakeholder platform that sought to improve maternal and child health outcomes, and empower adolescent girls in India. She has over a decade of experience, having led teams in the areas of financial inclusion, public health and CSR. She has also led functions across strategy, business development, communications and partnerships, and her writing has been featured in the Guardian, Stanford Social Innovation Review, Next Billion and Alliance Magazine. Rachita has an MBA from Judge Business School at Cambridge University and a BA in History from Yale University.

Smarinita Shetty is Co-founder and CEO at IDR. She has more than 20 years of experience leading functions across strategy, operations, sales and business development, largely in startup environments within corporates and social enterprises. Prior to IDR, Smarinita worked at Dasra, Monitor Inclusive Markets (now FSG), JP Morgan and The Economic Times. She also co-founded Netscribes–India’s first knowledge process outsourcing firm. Her work and opinion have been featured in The Economist, Times of India, Mint and The Economic Times. Smarinita has a BE in Computer Engineering and an MBA in Finance, both from Mumbai University.

This story was originally published by India Development Review (IDR)

Women are always hit hardest by water scarcity as they have to travel longer distances to fetch water, which increases their workload and compromises their ability to perform other essential and livelihood functions. Credit: Pem Norbhu

By Athar Parvaiz
GANGTOK, India, Feb 1 2017 (IPS)

Bina Sharma, a member of the Melli Dhara Gram Panchayat Unit in the southern part of India’s northeastern Himalayan state of Sikkim, is a relieved woman.

For the past three years, Sharma said, she has received hardly any complaints from villagers about water disputes.Before the village’s water crisis subsided, students of the local Nelligumpa Secondary School had to regularly take two litres of water from their homes to the school.

“Until a few years back, our springs were staying almost dry for five months from December to April. During those months I often used to get complaints from the villagers against their fellow villagers as they would fight for water,” Sharma told IPS.

People in most parts of the mountainous Sikkim, and those in other mountainous areas across the region, use spring water for their personal consumption, kitchen gardens, farms, cattle and poultry. According to Sikkim First, an economic and political journal, about 80 per cent of Sikkim’s rural households depend on springs for drinking water and irrigation.

From experts in Gangtok to laymen in the far-off villages, everyone agrees that erratic rains and frequent droughts have resulted in the drying up of springs in many parts of the state, especially in south. Some say that the problem became worse after the 2011 earthquake in Sikkim.

Many studies, including the IPCC’s 5^th Assessment Report, have reported changes in precipitation and temperature in the Himalayan region in recent years, but the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) says there is a major need for more research on Himalayan precipitation processes, as most studies have excluded the Himalayan region due to the region’s extreme, complex topography and lack of adequate rain-gauge data.

Adapting to changes, the Sikkim way

Thankfully, Sharma said, the water security scheme of Sikkim’s rural development department for recharging the springs “seems to be working in our village” since it was started in 2012. “We get water all year round now,” she said.

According to the people and the government officials in Sikkim, hundreds of springs and the lakes in Sikkim have been drying up, especially from November to May in recent years. This has compelled the government to think of a scheme to revive the drying springs and lakes by artificially recharging the springs.

The brain behind devising this innovative scheme is Sandeep Thambe, an Indian Forest Service officer with a mechanical engineering background who has also carried out extensive research on water and environmental issues in Sikkim and is currently a professor at the Indian Institute of Forest Management (IIMF), Bhopal.

Hari Maya Pradhan, a woman who lives alone in her home in Melli Dhara, said that she had decided to give up rearing poultry and cattle as a livelihood option because she had to endure so many hardships to access water. “But now I feel a lot better after the villagers worked hard and dug up the ponds [which help in recharging the springs],” Pradhan, who has two cows and a small poultry unit, told IPS.

Before the village’s water crisis subsided, students of the local Nelligumpa Secondary School had to regularly take two litres of water from their homes to the school.

“Many times we protested and were preparing to take all our students to Gangtok to stage a protest demonstration. But our woes got automatically addressed when our springs started producing water in the dry season as well,” said Norbhu Tshering, the school in-charge.

Connected to nature    

In almost all parts of Sikkim, people directly connect plastic pipes to the small springs spread above their habitations to avail the natural water supply. But in the south and western parts of Sikkim, getting water from the springs all through the season has become impossible for more than a decade.

In 2009, this prompted Tambe, who then served in the Sikkim government’s Rural Development Department, to start the Dhara Vikas (or Spring Development) programme for reviving and maintaining the drying springs and lakes particularly in southern and western parts of the state.

The scheme was later launched under the centrally sponsored Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), with technical support from other government agencies and organisations like WWF (India) and People’s Science Institute Dehradun.

According to Tambe, the core thrust of Dhara Vikas is to catch the surface runoff water and use it to recharge groundwater sources after identifying the specific recharge areas of springs accurately through scientific methods by digging staggered contour trenches and percolation pits.

“With increasing population, degrading health of watersheds and impacts of climate change, the lean period discharge of these springs is rapidly declining,” Tambe said, adding that artificial recharging has thankfully shown encouraging results.

He said that less than 15 per cent of the rainwater, as has been estimated in various studies, is able to percolate down to recharge the springs, while the remaining flows down as runoff often causing floods.

“Hence, a need was felt to enhance the contribution of that rainwater in ground water recharge, thereby contributing to rural water security,” Tambe told IPS.

Women, Tambe said, are always hit hardest by water scarcity as they have to travel longer distances to fetch water, which increases their workload and compromises their ability to perform other essential and livelihood functions. Reduced access to water, he said, also impacts health, hygiene, and sanitation.

Sarika Pradhan of Sikkim’s Rural Development Department said that 51 springs and four lakes in 20 drought-prone Gram Panchayats of Sikkim have been revived so far as the rural development department has mapped 704 springs in the village spring atlas, which provides information about all the mapped springs.

Her colleague, Subash Dhakal, said that trenches and percolation pits have been dug over an area of 637 hectares under MGNREGA for reviving these springs and lakes with an average cost of 250,000 rupees (USD 3,787) per spring.

*Research for this story was supported by a grant through The Forum of Environmental Journalists in India (FEJI) in collaboration with the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and Environment (ATREE) Media Fellowships in Environmental Conservation, 2016.

The water table is falling in Egypt's desert oases, raising questions of sustainability. Credit: Cam McGrath/IPS

By Cam McGrath
BAHARIYA OASIS, Egypt, Jul 12 2014 (IPS)

Using a hoe, farmer Atef Sayyid removes an earthen plug in an irrigation stream, allowing water to spill onto the parcel of land where he grows dates, olives and almonds.

Until recently, a natural spring exploited since Roman times supplied the iron-rich water that he uses for irrigation. But when the spring began to dry up in the 1990s, the government built a deep well to supplement its waning flow.

Today, a noisy diesel pump syphons water from over a kilometre below the ground. The steaming-hot water is diverted through a maze of earthen canals to irrigate the orchards and palm groves that lie below the dusty town of Bawiti, 300 kilometres southwest of Cairo.

“The deeper source means the water is hotter,” Sayyid explains. “The hot water damages the roots of the fruit trees. It also evaporates quicker, meaning we have to use more water to irrigate.”

Bahariya, the depression in which Bawiti is situated, is one of five major oases in Egypt’s Western Desert. While Egyptians living in the densely populated Nile River Valley and Delta depend on the Nile for their freshwater needs, communities in this remote and arid region rely entirely on underground sources.“This [water drawn from the Nubian Sandstone Aquifer] is fossil water, which means it was deposited a very long time ago and is not being replenished. So once you pump the water out of the aquifer, it’s gone for good” – resource management specialist Richard Tutwiler

Since ancient times, freshwater has percolated through fissures in the bedrock, making agriculture possible in the otherwise inhospitable desert. Water was once so plentiful in the five oases that they were collectively known as a breadbasket of the Roman Empire on account of their intensive grain cultivation.

Ominously, where groundwater once flowed naturally or was tapped near the surface, farmers must now bore up to a kilometre underground, raising fears for the region’s sustainability.

“Historically, springs and artesian wells supplied all the water in the oases,” says Richard Tutwiler, a resource management specialist at the American University in Cairo. “But water pressure is dropping and increasingly it has to be pumped out, particularly as you go from south to north.”

The water is drawn from the Nubian Sandstone Aquifer, an underground reservoir of fossil water accumulated over tens of thousands of years when the Saharan region was less arid than it is today. The vast aquifer extends beneath much of Egypt, Libya, Sudan and Chad, and is estimated to hold 150,000 cubic kilometres of groundwater.

But it is a finite resource, says Tutwiler.

“This is fossil water, which means it was deposited a very long time ago and is not being replenished,” he told IPS. “So once you pump the water out of the aquifer, it’s gone for good.”

Extraction is intensifying in all of the countries that share the aquifer. In Egypt alone, an estimated 700 million cubic metres of water is pumped from deep wells each year.

The increase in water usage is the result of agricultural expansion and population growth. Nearly 2,000 square kilometres of desert land has been reclaimed by groundwater irrigation in the last 60 years. Farmers employ flood irrigation, a traditional technique in which half the water is lost to evaporation and ground seepage before reaching the crops.

Since the 1980s, government programmes aimed at alleviating population pressure on the Nile Valley have encouraged Egyptian families to relocate to the desert. Existing oasis communities have grown while new ones have sprung up around deep wells.

One of these settlements, Abu Minqar, was founded in 1987 and now boasts over 4,000 residents. The isolated community only exists because of its 15 wells, which draw groundwater from depths of up to 1,200 metres.

“Water management in (places like) Abu Minqar must be sustainable,” says Tutwiler. “Because if the wells dry up, it’s game over.”

The number of wells in the Western Desert has increased immensely since the first appearance of percussion drilling machinery 150 years ago. Records show that in 1960 there were less than 30 deep wells in all the oases – today there are nearly 3,000.

In Dakhla Oasis, 550 kilometres southwest of Cairo, natural springs and 900 wells provide water for the 80,000 inhabitants of the oasis, as well as orchards that produce date palms, citrus fruits and mulberries. This was traditionally one of Egypt’s most fertile oases because of the proximity of the aquifer to the surface – less than 100 metres throughout the depression.

But here, as elsewhere, water sources that flowed freely less than a generation ago now only flow with the aid of mechanical pumps. Groundwater extraction has exceeded 500,000 cubic metres a day and the water table is dropping, in some places by nearly two metres a year.

“There are too many straws in the same glass of water,” remarks hydrologist Maghawry Diab

While Diab estimates the Nubian Sandstone Aquifer may hold enough water to last the next 100 years, Egypt’s desert communities could have a lot less time.

Over-pumping has created localised “dry pockets” in the aquifer, which behaves more like a layered damp sponge than a pool of water. Tightly-spaced deep wells are drawing down the water table, while their overlapping well cones intercept upward flowing groundwater before it can recharge the shallower wells.

“All the wells are tapping the same larger cone of depression,” Diab told IPS. “To gain years, we’ll have to find even deeper groundwater sources or (come to terms with) using saline water.”

In an effort to reduce pressure on groundwater resources, Egypt’s government has set restrictions on the drilling of new wells and reduced the discharge rates of certain high-productive ones.

At government wells, a formalised system of water sharing is in place. But farmers thirsty for more water have drilled their own wells, concealing them from authorities or bribing local officials to turn a blind eye.

“We have tried to control the drilling, but there is a lot of resistance from farmers,” says one former irrigation ministry official. “Every time we capped (an unlicensed) well, two more would appear.”

In arid places like Tilcara, in the Quebrada de Humahuaca, Jujuy, groundwater resserves play a crucial role. Credit: Juan Moseinco/IPS

By Marcela Valente
BUENOS AIRES, Oct 10 2013 (IPS)

Half of Argentina is supplied with water by invisible underground aquifers, which are crucial in the country’s arid and semi-arid regions, experts say. But Tierramérica discovered that nobody – not even the government – has any accurate scientific data on these groundwater reserves.

Beyond the Guaraní Aquifer, the vast underground body of fresh water shared by Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay, little is known about the groundwater reserves of this country with a wealth of highly visible water resources, including the rivers of the Rio de la Plata Basin, Iguazú Falls, and the majestic glaciers of Patagonia.

The Guaraní Aquifer became well known due to a monitoring plan funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF), “but in Argentina there are other aquifers that are exploited much more intensively” and support regional economies, said Ofelia Tujchneider, a geologist from the National University of the Littoral.

In terms of the quantity and quality of its water, the most important is the Puelches aquifer, which lies beneath part of the province of Buenos Aires, in eastern Argentina, Córdoba in the centre of the country, and Santa Fe in the northeast.

According to the Environmental Atlas of Buenos Aires, the depth of the Puelches aquifer ranges from 40 to 120 metres, and it supplies 9,900 cubic metres of water a day. It is located between the Pampeano aquifer, which is closer to the surface, and the deeper Paraná aquifer, whose water is salty and used primarily by industry.

In the eastern region of the country are the Ituzaingó, Salto and Salto Chico aquifers. And in the province of Neuquén, in the western part of the southern region of Patagonia, groundwater reserves provide water for the oil, gas and mining industries, explained Mario Hernández, a hydrogeologist from the National University of La Plata.

There are also aquifers in the southern province of Santa Cruz. And in the northwest, an arid region with little rainfall, these groundwater deposits are recharged by river water.

In the western provinces of Mendoza and San Juan, water is supplied primarily by underground reserves. As a result, the aquifers here are studied and protected, and subject to regular monitoring, because the local wine industry depends on the water they provide.

“Groundwater resources play a key role in arid and semi-arid regions. If it weren’t for the aquifers, massive engineering works would be needed to supply water for irrigation or residential use,” Tujchneider told Tierramérica.

Groundwater is abundant, of good quality, tends to be better protected from pollution, and can be found in large volumes even beneath arid, desertified or desert areas.

The Rio de la Plata Basin encompasses 85 percent of the country’s surface water resources, according to the book “Agua: Panorama general en Argentina” (Water: A general overview in Argentina), published by the non-governmental organisation Green Cross. But this network of rivers only extends to 33 percent of the country, in the northeast, and flows into the large estuary that gives the basin its name and empties into the Atlantic Ocean.

Much of the rest of the country is arid or semi-arid, with areas where the available water supply is less than 1,000 cubic metres per person per year, the measure used to define water scarcity by the United Nations Development Programme.

In 2010, 82.6 percent of the population, currently estimated at 41 million, was served by the drinking water supply system.

According to Hernández, half of the country is supplied with water by aquifers, which provide water for the irrigation of cereal and grain crops as well as the industrial and mining sectors and a large share of household consumption.

However, he stressed to Tierramérica, there are no accurate measurements or statistics on Argentina’s groundwater reserves.

The only available data is from a 2000 World Bank report, which estimated that groundwater resources account for 35 percent of the water used for irrigation, livestock farming, industry and household consumption.

Tujchneider believes that the current level of groundwater use is “quite a lot higher than 35 percent,” particularly because of an increase in irrigation and in rice production in recent years.

However, because of the lack of recognition of the immense value of this resource, there is a danger that groundwater reserves can become contaminated with agrochemicals, industrial waste or wastewater, or that they will be exploited beyond their recharge capacity.

The water stored in an aquifer may have been there for a very long time. If it is extracted without limits, it could run out, as is already happening in Mendoza, warned Tujchneider.

Hernández noted that aquifers are “more protected from contamination than surface water” but they are also “more fragile, and once they are contaminated, they are much more difficult to clean up than rivers.”

“There is a lack of knowledge. They are not valued, and they don’t teach about them in schools. Children think that water comes from a tap,” he commented.

The Federal National Groundwater Plan aims to put an end to this lack of visibility, said its coordinator, Jorge Santa Cruz, who has a PhD in natural sciences and headed up the studies on the Guaraní Aquifer. The first step will be the organisation of diagnostic workshops in the country’s different provinces, he told Tierramérica.

The objectives of the plan, which is being overseen by the Undersecretariat of Water Resources, include the development of a database of hydrogeological data so that aquifers are viewed as reserves of a resource that is “known, predictable and reliable,” even if it cannot be seen.

* This story was originally published by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network.

A man hauls water at the Chico Mendes landless peasant camp in Pernambuco, Brazil. Credit: Alejandro Arigón/IPS

By Stephen Leahy
UXBRIDGE, Canada, May 21 2013 (IPS)

Everyone knows water is life. Far too few understand the role of trees, plants and other living things in ensuring we have clean, fresh water.

This dangerous ignorance results in destruction of wetlands that once cleaned water and prevented destructive and costly flooding, scientists and activists warn."We have accelerated major processes like erosion, applied massive quantities of nitrogen that leaks from soil to ground and surface waters and, sometimes, literally siphoned all water from rivers." -- GWSP's Anik Bhaduri

Around the world, politicians and others in power have made and continue to make decisions based on short-term economic interests without considering the long-term impact on the natural environment, said Anik Bhaduri, executive officer of the Global Water System Project (GWSP), a research institute based in Bonn, Germany.

“Humans are changing the character of the world water system in significant ways with inadequate knowledge of the system and the consequences of changes being imposed,” Bhaduri told IPS.

The list of human impacts on the world’s water – of which only 0.03percent is available as freshwater – is long and the scale of those impacts daunting.

“We have accelerated major processes like erosion, applied massive quantities of nitrogen that leaks from soil to ground and surface waters and, sometimes, literally siphoned all water from rivers, emptying them for human uses before they reach the ocean,” Bhaduri said.

On average, humanity has built one large dam every day for the last 130 years, which distorts the natural river flows to which ecosystems and aquatic life adapted over millennia. Two-thirds of major river deltas are sinking due to pumping out groundwater, oil and gas. Some deltas are falling at a rate four times faster than global sea level is rising.

More than 65 percent of the world’s rivers are in trouble, according to one study published in Nature in 2010. Those findings were very “conservative” since there was not enough data to assess impacts of climate change, pharmaceutical compounds, mining wastes and water transfers, Charles Vörösmarty of the City University of New York previously told IPS.

Recently, China’s First National Census of Water discovered they’d lost more than 28,000 rivers compared to just 20 years ago. Most experts blame the loss on massive overuse and engineering projects to shift water from one region to another.

“We treat symptoms of environmental abuse rather than underlying causes…by throwing concrete, pipes, pumps, and chemicals at our water problems, to the tune of a half-trillion dollars a year,” said Vörösmarty, who is also co-chair and a founding member of the GWSP.

As these problems continue to mount, the public is largely unaware of this reality or its growing costs, he said in a release.

Protecting and investing in natural infrastructure is far cheaper than concrete and pipes, representing the smarter solution to water security. This approach also benefits tourism, recreation and cultural benefits, improved resilience and biodiversity conservation.

World experts are meeting in Bonn, Germany this week to consolidate this understanding and offer policy makers solutions to prevent ongoing damage to the global water system.

The Water in the Anthropocene conference will also make recommendations on how decision makers can adapt to the multiple challenges of growing water use, declining ecosystems and climate change.

The public and policy makers are not aware of these huge water challenges, said water expert Janos Bogardi, senior advisor to GWSP. Education aside, there is an overwhelming need to have well-defined global water quantity and quality standards that meet the needs of people, agriculture and healthy ecosystems.

The upcoming U.N. Sustainable Development Goals are expected to include “water security”, which is huge step forward, Bogardi told IPS.

“Defining these interrelated needs is huge challenge for scientists and politicians alike,” he said.

Reasonable daily water use to meet sanitary needs and drinking is 40 to 80 litres, but U.S. per capita daily use is over 300 litres, while Germany is 120 litres. In urban Hungary, where water is relatively expensive, consumption is 80 litres/day.

But how much water does nature need?

GWSP scientists’ best guess at this point is that taking 30 percent to 40 percent of a renewable freshwater resource constitutes “extreme” water stress which could tip an ecosystem into collapse. This can be mitigated if water is returned and recycled in good quality. Mining fossil groundwater resources is by definition non-sustainable.

“We have to be careful that the water security goal is truly sustainable for ecosystems,” Bogardi said.

It is not clear that the Sustainable Development Goal on water will “simultaneously optimise water security for humans as well as for nature”, said Vörösmarty.

“The water sciences community stands ready to take on this challenge. Are the decision makers?” he asked.