Global groundwater modeling and monitoring: opportunities and challenges

Condon, L. E., Kollet, S., Bierkens, M. F. P., Fogg, G. E., Maxwell, R. M., Hill, M. C., Hendricks Fransen, H.-J., Verhoef, A. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9498-6696, Van Loon, A. F., Sulis, M. and Abesser, C. (2021) Global groundwater modeling and monitoring: opportunities and challenges. Water Resources Research, 57 (12). e2020WR029500. ISSN 0043-1397 doi: 10.1029/2020WR029500

Abstract/Summary

Groundwater is by far the largest unfrozen freshwater resource on the planet. It plays a critical role as the bottom of the hydrologic cycle, redistributing water in the subsurface and supporting plants and surface water bodies. However, groundwater has historically been excluded or greatly simplified in global models. In recent years, there has been an international push to develop global scale groundwater modeling and analysis. This progress has provided some critical first steps. Still, much additional work will be needed to achieve a consistent global groundwater framework that interacts seamlessly with observational datasets and other earth system and global circulation models. Here we outline a vision for a global groundwater platform for groundwater monitoring and prediction and identify the key technological and data challenges that are currently limiting progress. Any global platform of this type must be interdisciplinary and cannot be achieved by the groundwater modeling community in isolation. Therefore, we also provide a high-level overview of the groundwater system, approaches to groundwater modeling and the current state of global groundwater representations, such that readers of all backgrounds can engage in this challenge.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/102376
Identification Number/DOI	10.1029/2020WR029500
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Science > School of Archaeology, Geography and Environmental Science > Earth Systems Science Science > School of Archaeology, Geography and Environmental Science > Department of Geography and Environmental Science
Publisher	American Geophysical Union
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