Why is groundwater neglected in water

management discussions?

Anders Berntell

Executive Director

Stockholm International Water Institute

Is it neglected?

• Google hits:

– River management 122 000 000

– Lake management 74 000 000

– Water management 47 500 000

– Freshwater management 6 700 000

– Surfacewater management 2 580 000

– Groundwater management: 576 000

Precious resource

• Distributed

• Clean – compared to surface waters in most places

• Relatively inexpensive to abstract

• Relatively stable supply over time

• Inexpensive storing

• Supplies surface water

• Water for the poor, in many developing countries

Agriculture

Number of

wells

Agricultural

production

Green revolution in India

According to the International Groundwater

Resources Assessment Centre

http://www.igrac.nl/:

Overexploitation

India, traditional view

Grace Tellus, satellite mapping

An example

• EU Framework Directive on Water, 2000

Surface water quality objectives

• Detailed annexes, chemistry and biology

Groundwater quality objectives

• “to reverse any significant and sustained upward trend

in the concentration of any pollutant……….”

Member states could not agree on detailed quality objectives, they could only agree to start developing them

• New Groundwater Directive, 2006

– Quality standards

– Methodology for setting national standards

European Environment Agency

• 136 maps on surface-water

• 7 maps on groundwater

Surface water monitoring stations

Groundwater bodies - Aquifer type

Nitrate in surface water

Nitrate in groundwater

Salt water intrusion, due to overexploitation

Danger to groundwater from pesticides

First classification of status, Framework Directive on Water

Darker blue =

higher risk of not

reaching “good

status”

Getting better……

Insufficient knowledge – Why?

• Monitoring expensive

• Mapping expensive

• Characterisation expensive

• Modelling complicated and expensive

Few good examples (i.e. Rhine, Danube……)

But more important: “Tragedy of the commons”

• Private use – Common good

• Diffuse pollution – Common good

Countries where monitoring data is available

• International collaboration often required

– Many examples in developing countries are results of international projects

The tragedy of the commons

• Land – Land rights defined – Defined boundaries – Has a price – Visible

• Groundwater – Public good – Water rights unclear – Is free – Flowing – Invisible/Unknown – Delayed response

Legal regimes

• UN Watercourses Convention, 1997 – No Groundwater

• UN-Interational Law Commission

– Committee on Groundwater

• UN-ECE Convention on the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and International Lakes, 1992

• SADC Protocol on Shared Watercourse Systems, 2001