The Grootfontein aquifer: Governance of a hydro-social system at Nash equilibrium

The Grootfontein groundwater aquifer is important to the water supply of the town Mahikeng in the North West Province of South Africa and to commercial agriculture in the Province, but the water table has fallen by up to 28 m as a consequence of over-abstraction since the 1980s. Institutional and hydrogeological issues impact the aquifer in complex ways, described here as a hydro-social system. Whilst the hydrogeology is well understood and South African laws provide for sustainable groundwater governance, poor stakeholder collaboration and other institutional problems mean that the overabstraction is likely to persist – an example of an undesirable Nash equilibrium. The Grootfontein aquifer case shows that groundwater underpins wider social-ecological-economic systems, and that more holistic management – taking the institutional context into account – is needed to underpin economic growth, employment and other public outcomes.  Significance: • The cost of better natural resource stewardship, including groundwater, is likely to be considerably less than the losses that occur when it is absent. • If local groundwater was better managed, it could make water supplies in Mahikeng cheaper and more reliable, which would in turn support local economic growth and employment

Flow heterogeneity in the fractured Chalk aquifer of southern England

The aim of the current work is to investigate the heterogeneity of flow in the Chalk aquifer of southern England. The rock mass properties and hydraulic characteristics of the aquifer have been characterised using a suite of geological and geophysical surveys and hydraulic tests. Fracture logs have been produced based on core logging and using optical images of boreholes. Flow has been characterised using borehole flow logs and dilution tests and hydraulic conductivity measured using packer tests. Fractures have been recorded with apertures in the range <1mm to about 30cm (sub-karstic enlargement) in diameter, however, hydrogeologically significant flow is not restricted to the enlarged fractures and is affected by the local groundwater head distribution. The work is being undertaken as part of the LOCAR Programme. LOCAR is a multi-project programme with the aim of measuring and modelling processes controlling water and material fluxes within lowland permeable catchments in the UK

The benefits of a scientific approach to sustainable development of groundwater in Sub-Saharan Africa

With less than ten years to go before the deadline for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) falls due, there is an increasing urgency behind the supply of safe drinking water and sanitation facilities to African countries. Although groundwater will form a substantial part of the water used in water supply schemes, particularly in rural areas, the resource is poorly understood in many parts of the continent. Careful and appropriate data collection during project implementation, together with data interpretation and knowledge dissemination can prevent past mistakes being repeated, and reduce the ultimate cost of water supply schemes both from a human and a financial point of view. Hydrogeologists are familiar with this argument, but are not always consulted when water supply schemes are planned. As funding agencies prepare to increase water supply and sanitation implementation in sub-Saharan Africa, it is vital that a scientific approach to groundwater development is more widely adopted, and incorporated at the planning stage of new projects

Identifying transboundary aquifers in need of international resource management in the Southern African Development Community region

Transboundary aquifer (TBA) management, in part, seeks to mitigate degradation of groundwater resources caused either by an imbalance of abstraction between countries or by cross-border pollution. Fourteen potential TBAs were identified within a hydrogeological mapping programme based on simple hydrogeological selection criteria for the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region. These have been reassessed against a set of data associated with five categories: (1) groundwater flow and vulnerability (which is perceived as the over-arching influence on the activity level of each TBA), (2) knowledge and understanding, (3) governance capability, (4) socio-economic/water-demand factors, and (5) environmental issues. These assessments enable the TBAs to be classified according to their need for cross-border co-operation and management. The study shows that only two of the 14 TBAs have potential to be the cause of tension between neighbouring states, while nine are potentially troublesome and three are unlikely to become problematic even in the future. The classification highlights the need to focus on data gathering to enable improved understanding of the TBAs that could potentially become troublesome in the future due to, for example, change in demographics and climate