The global groundwater situation: overview of opportunities and challenges

Abstract

Groundwater offers us few but precious opportunities for alleviating the misery of the poor; but it poses manyԡnd dauntingԣhallenges of preserving the resource itself. A big part of the answer is massive initiatives to augment groundwater recharge in regions suffering depletion; but, in the ultimate analysis, these cannot work without appropriate demand-side interventions. The water vision of a world that future generations will inherit will have to be the one in which groundwater plays its full developmental, productive and environmental role but in a sustainable manner; and the framework of action to realize this vision will mean eschewing the current free-for-all in groundwater appropriation and use, and promoting a more responsible management of this precious resource that is easy to deplete or ruinԴhrough depletion, salinization and pollutionGroundwater resources, Groundwater depletion, Water scarcity, Water shortage, Poverty, Rural development, River basins, Sustainability, Waterlogging, Salinity, Aquifers, Water pollution, Pumps, Recharge, Water harvesting, Community/Rural/Urban Development, Environmental Economics and Policy, Food Security and Poverty,