Groundwater impacts directly and indirectly on many societal, economic and environmental areas of life. However, due to the diversity and complexity of groundwater issues as well as its hidden nature, it is, in most cases, challenging to adequately quantify the groundwater component in the water management process. To fully understand the various roles which groundwater might play and to choose the right measures for the efficient, equitable and sustainable management of water resources, data and information on groundwater are required and a sound monitoring system and knowledge base is therefore essential. Groundwater monitoring is a wise investment often hampered by the immediate equipment and maintenance costs: identifying problems at an early stage is highly cost-effective, allowing mitigation measures to be introduced before serious deterioration of the resource takes place. Conventional monitoring programmes can be augmented by citizen science initiatives, which can also promote the integration of local knowledge into hydrogeological characterization and groundwater system assessments. Remote sensing techniques have also been used by the user community to improve monitoring and estimation of groundwater resources.
This session will be dedicated to presenting the current state of groundwater data and information, demand and availability. It will go on to discuss the main challenges to improving data collection and to ensuring access to such data as well as identifying actions for moving forward. Participants will represent national and international perspectives. The guiding principles that underpin the SDG 6 Global Acceleration Framework will be used to orient and define the proposed actions, while outcomes of the session will be included in the Summit Statement.
