Suchergebnisse

Sustainable use of groundwater is becoming critical in India and requires effective participation from local communities along with technical, social, economic, policy and political inputs. Access to groundwater for farming communities is also an emotional and complex issue as their livelihood and survival depends on it. In this article, we report on transdisciplinary approaches to understanding the issues, challenges and options for improving sustainability of groundwater use in States of Gujarat and Rajasthan, India. In this project, called Managed Aquifer Recharge through Village level Intervention (MARVI), the research is focused on developing a suitable participatory approach and methodology with associated tools that will assist in improving supply and demand management of groundwater. The study was conducted in the Meghraj watershed in Aravalli district, Gujarat, and the Dharta watershed in Udaipur district, Rajasthan, India. The study involved the collection of hydrologic, agronomic and socio-economic data and engagement of local village and school communities through their role in groundwater monitoring, field trials, photovoice activities and education campaigns. The study revealed that availability of relevant and reliable data related to the various aspects of groundwater and developing trust and support between local communities, NGOs and government agencies are the key to moving towards a dialogue to decide on what to do to achieve sustainable use of groundwater. The analysis of long-term water table data indicated considerable fluctuation in groundwater levels from year to year or a net lowering of the water table, but the levels tend to recover during wet years. This provides hope that by improving management of recharge structures and groundwater pumping, we can assist in stabilizing the local water table. Our interventions through Bhujal Jankaars (BJs), (a Hindi word meaning "groundwater informed" volunteers), schools, photovoice workshops and newsletters have resulted in dialogue within the communities about the seriousness of the groundwater issue and ways to explore options for situation improvement. The BJs are now trained to understand how local recharge and discharge patterns are influenced by local rainfall patterns and pumping patterns and they are now becoming local champions of groundwater and an important link between farmers and project team. This study has further strengthened the belief that traditional research approaches to improve the groundwater situation are unlikely to be suitable for complex groundwater issues in the study areas. The experience from the study indicates that a transdisciplinary approach is likely to be more effective in enabling farmers, other village community members and NGOs to work together with researchers and government agencies to understand the groundwater situation and design interventions that are holistic and have wider ownership. Also, such an approach is expected to deliver longer-term sustainability of groundwater at a regional level.

AbstractIn Abu Dhabi, the United Arab Emirates, groundwater is the only natural freshwater resource. This resource is under great stress due to high extraction rates, low precipitation/recharge rates, and increasing levels of salinity. This is comparable with groundwater issues in Western Australia, which also faces water challenges. Just like Western Australia, Abu Dhabi is heavily dependent on groundwater to support agricultural irrigation, which uses nearly 70% of the groundwater extracted. Unlike Western Australia, however, agriculture in Abu Dhabi relies heavily on governmental subsidies, despite its negligible contribution to the economy. This study aimed to fill the gap in understanding about Abu Dhabi farmers', and Western Australian farmers', knowledge, attitudes, skills, and aspirations concerning groundwater management. A comparison of the findings related to these factors among both populations was used to develop ideas for future groundwater awareness programs targeting Abu Dhabi farmers. The theoretical framework of this research was based on the fifth step of Bennett's Hierarchy model, which is a popular method for measuring the effectiveness of extension programs. Twelve Abu Dhabi farmers were interviewed regarding groundwater management in Abu Dhabi. The interview transcripts were analyzed using thematic analysis, and the findings were compared to Western Australian farmers' knowledge, attitudes, skills, and aspirations concerning sustainable agricultural practices, which were synthesized from relevant literature. The study revealed that the interviewed Abu Dhabi farmers realized the importance of agriculture and groundwater. However, they viewed agriculture more as a hobby than a source of income and had cultural and social ties to farming. They also possessed limited knowledge regarding agriculture's environmental impacts. A trust or communication problem between the farmers and the Abu Dhabi Agriculture and Food Safety Authority, the governmental authority in charge of irrigation and agricultural extension, was also identified. Abu Dhabi farmers chose basic measures to preserve groundwater, and most were unwilling to adopt additional practices. Western Australian farmers, on the other hand, possessed more detailed knowledge about agriculture's environmental impacts and were willing to adopt sustainable practices so long as they did not affect their income. The following recommendations are made for extension programs targeting Abu Dhabi farmers: Focus on developing a shared vision regarding groundwater conservation; include a farm laborers' extension program; foster trust between extension agents and farmers; use demonstration farms for new technologies; and link governmental farmers' subsidies to the adoption of water efficiency. This study calls for future research on the objectives of the Abu Dhabi Agriculture and Food Safety Authority's water conservation extension programs, as well as on the effect of demographic factors on Abu Dhabi farmers' knowledge, attitudes, skills, and aspirations.

Sustainable use of groundwater is becoming critical in India and requires effective participation from local communities along with technical, social, economic, policy and political inputs. Access to groundwater for farming communities is also an emotional and complex issue as their livelihood and survival depends on it. In this article, we report on transdisciplinary approaches to understanding the issues, challenges and options for improving sustainability of groundwater use in States of Gujarat and Rajasthan, India. In this project, called Managed Aquifer Recharge through Village level Intervention (MARVI), the research is focused on developing a suitable participatory approach and methodology with associated tools that will assist in improving supply and demand management of groundwater. The study was conducted in the Meghraj watershed in Aravalli district, Gujarat, and the Dharta watershed in Udaipur district, Rajasthan, India. The study involved the collection of hydrologic, agronomic and socio-economic data and engagement of local village and school communities through their role in groundwater monitoring, field trials, photovoice activities and education campaigns. The study revealed that availability of relevant and reliable data related to the various aspects of groundwater and developing trust and support between local communities, NGOs and government agencies are the key to moving towards a dialogue to decide on what to do to achieve sustainable use of groundwater. The analysis of long-term water table data indicated considerable fluctuation in groundwater levels from year to year or a net lowering of the water table, but the levels tend to recover during wet years. This provides hope that by improving management of recharge structures and groundwater pumping, we can assist in stabilizing the local water table. Our interventions through Bhujal Jankaars (BJs), (a Hindi word meaning "groundwater informed" volunteers), schools, photovoice workshops and newsletters have resulted in dialogue within the communities about the seriousness of the groundwater issue and ways to explore options for situation improvement. The BJs are now trained to understand how local recharge and discharge patterns are influenced by local rainfall patterns and pumping patterns and they are now becoming local champions of groundwater and an important link between farmers and project team. This study has further strengthened the belief that traditional research approaches to improve the groundwater situation are unlikely to be suitable for complex groundwater issues in the study areas. The experience from the study indicates that a transdisciplinary approach is likely to be more effective in enabling farmers, other village community members and NGOs to work together with researchers and government agencies to understand the groundwater situation and design interventions that are holistic and have wider ownership. Also, such an approach is expected to deliver longer-term sustainability of groundwater at a regional level.

Spain is a country with a large hydrogeologic potential. As in other southern European countries the water resources, besides urban supply, are used mainly for irrigation and much of the groundwater abstraction is concentrated in a number of intensively exploited aquifers. Groundwater was declared a public domain resource in Spain in 1985, but the real implementation of such a declaration has encountered many difficulties in practice. Because groundwater was a private property before the 1985 Water Act, it was not considered a task for water management agencies and water authorities in Spain. As with aIl the European Union Member States, Spain is nowadays fuIly involved in the process of implementing the principies of the European Water Framework Directive (WFD) (European Commission, 2000). Such a process constitutes a unique opportunity to improve groundwater protection and knowledge, and achieve effective management of this resource. However, to adapt the WFD principies to the hydro-climatic and socio-economic context of a south European Mediterranean country is not an easy task. The current papel' provides an overview of the hydrogeologic context and groundwater management practices in Spain. The main groundwater "facts and figures" of Spain are introduced first, mainly concerning the hydrogeologic knowledge and groundwater use in the country, with a section on specific technical measures. A summary of the groundwater management context is described afterwards, introducing the institutional and legal framework as weIl as sorne basic concepts related to groundwater management, and also a section on groundwater cost issues. Next, a section of discussion about the ongoing process of the WFD implementation in Spain is offered. This paper finishes with a general summary and some conclusions. ; Postprint (published version)

Las Tablas de Daimiel, together with other wetlands in La Mancha, Spain, situated in the Upper Guadiana Basin (Fig. 1), has been catalogued as a Biosphere Reserve Area since 1981 as part of the UNESCO Man and the Biosphere programme. Between the mid-1970s and late 1980s, over 150 000 hectares of new irrigation areas were established, mainly as a result of private initiative. The average recharge rate of groundwater in the western La Mancha aquifer in the Upper Guadiana Basin is estimated to be between 200 and 500 million m3 per year, in dry and wet years respectively. Recharge also depends on the depth of the water table (Martínez-Cortina & Cruces 2003). Abstraction reached 600 million m3 per year by the end of the 1980s. Up to this time a total of 3000–5000 million m3 of the Upper Guadiana Basin aquifer's water reserves was withdrawn (Bromley et al. 2000; Lopéz-Geta et al. 2006). The intensive use of groundwater has been a main factor for the improvement of the social and economic situation in this region, with a population of about half a million people, and where the agricultural sector is very important (Llamas et al. 2006). Water-table drawdown due to the intensive abstraction of groundwater for irrigation has caused severe negative impacts on wetlands, streams and rivers, and has resulted in a lowering of groundwater levels by up to 50 m. The main conflicts in the area are between farmers and conservationists, between central, regional and local government water agencies, and between small farmers and big farmers. The conflicts began about three decades ago (Llamas 1988) and have not yet been settled. In 2001 the Spanish Parliament asked the Government to present a hydrological plan for the Upper Guadiana Basin within one year. More than 20 draft proposals have been presented, the last one in 2006 with a budget of almost four billion Euros. This proposal has been met with strong opposition from most farmer lobbies. The Guadiana Basin is one of seven trans-boundary case studies of the EU NeWater research project (New Approaches for Adaptive Water Management under Uncertainty). The principal water-management issues in the project are addressed by adaptive and integrated water-resource manage ment. This includes uncertainty and risk mitigation, governance, crosssectoral integration, scale analysis, information management, stakeholder participation, financial aspects, system resilience and vulnerability. One work block in the NeWater project has the task of translating research outputs into tools for practitioners and end-users. As part of this effort, Bayesian belief networks (Bns) were selected as one possible tool to be developed as an aid to stakeholder participation in integrated assessment of gaps, being a suitable tool for dialogue in order to identify gaps in water-resource management functions, gaps to meet the goals of the EU Water Framework Directive and to analyse management potentials and constraints. The purpose of this paper is to describe the testing of Bns as a tool for participatory integrated assessment and adaptive and integrated water-resource management in the Upper Guadiana Basin.

Not Available ; Sustainable use of groundwater is becoming critical in India and requires effective participation from local communities along with technical, social, economic, policy and political inputs. Access to groundwater for farming communities is also an emotional and complex issue as their livelihood and survival depends on it. In this article, we report on transdisciplinary approaches to understanding the issues, challenges and options for improving sustainability of groundwater use in States of Gujarat and Rajasthan, India. In this project, called Managed Aquifer Recharge through Village level Intervention (MARVI), the research is focused on developing a suitable participatory approach and methodology with associated tools that will assist in improving supply and demand management of groundwater. The study was conducted in the Meghraj watershed in Aravalli district, Gujarat, and the Dharta watershed in Udaipur district, Rajasthan, India. The study involved the collection of hydrologic, agronomic and socio-economic data and engagement of local village and school communities through their role in groundwater monitoring, field trials, photovoice activities and education campaigns. The study revealed that availability of relevant and reliable data related to the various aspects of groundwater and developing trust and support between local communities, NGOs and government agencies are the key to moving towards a dialogue to decide on what to do to achieve sustainable use of groundwater. The analysis of long-term water table data indicated considerable fluctuation in groundwater levels from year to year or a net lowering of the water table, but the levels tend to recover during wet years. This provides hope that by improving management of recharge structures and groundwater pumping, we can assist in stabilizing the local water table. Our interventions through Bhujal Jankaars (BJs), (a Hindi word meaning "groundwater informed" volunteers), schools, photovoice workshops and newsletters have resulted in dialogue within the communities about the seriousness of the groundwater issue and ways to explore options for situation improvement. The BJs are now trained to understand how local recharge and discharge patterns are influenced by local rainfall patterns and pumping patterns and they are now becoming local champions of groundwater and an important link between farmers and project team. This study has further strengthened the belief that traditional research approaches to improve the groundwater situation are unlikely to be suitable for complex groundwater issues in the study areas. The experience from the study indicates that a transdisciplinary approach is likely to be more effective in enabling farmers, other village community members and NGOs to work together with researchers and government agencies to understand the groundwater situation and design interventions that are holistic and have wider ownership. Also, such an approach is expected to deliver longer-term sustainability of groundwater at a regional level. ; Not Available

Groundwater is increasingly important for meeting water demand across the United States (U.S.). Forward thinking governance and effective management are necessary for its sustainable use. In the U.S., state governments are primarily responsible for groundwater governance (i.e., making laws, policies, and regulations) and management (i.e., implementation of laws, policies, and regulations). This decentralized system results in diverse strategies and practices. We surveyed a water quality professional from each state to better understand commonalities and differences across states. These professionals identify a wide assortment of groundwater issues and concerns, including quality and quantity impairment, staffing and budget issues, private well vulnerability, and overdraft. Respondents indicate contamination problems from natural and anthropogenic sources. Most respondents report that their states have significantly changed groundwater quality policy during the past 30 years. While most states have multiple funding sources for water quality programs, program budgets have decreased in the last decade, thereby hindering effective implementation of new policies. Over half of respondents indicate that water-quality/water-level monitoring and increased groundwater pumping will require more attention over the next decade. Several respondents anticipate groundwater regulation changes in the next five years. We discuss how our findings align with current groundwater uses in the U.S.

International audience ; Sustainable groundwater management relies on data to establish resource conditions and measure the effects of management intervention. As groundwater management grows in size and complexity so does the data needed to inform it, and the systems needed to manage this data. This chapter presents a discussion of groundwater information systems, their history, and examples of their application in France and Australia, including how these systems are used to inform and improve groundwater management. Examples are presented demonstrating the application of information systems in a range of agencies and legislative settings. These examples include systems used for local management, national data standardization, online data sharing, and environmental impact assessments. Finally, lessons learned and future developments are presented. This includes a comparison of the similarities and differences in the history and current state of groundwater management system development in each country.

International audience ; Sustainable groundwater management relies on data to establish resource conditions and measure the effects of management intervention. As groundwater management grows in size and complexity so does the data needed to inform it, and the systems needed to manage this data. This chapter presents a discussion of groundwater information systems, their history, and examples of their application in France and Australia, including how these systems are used to inform and improve groundwater management. Examples are presented demonstrating the application of information systems in a range of agencies and legislative settings. These examples include systems used for local management, national data standardization, online data sharing, and environmental impact assessments. Finally, lessons learned and future developments are presented. This includes a comparison of the similarities and differences in the history and current state of groundwater management system development in each country.