1st Edition

Groundwater Recent Advances in Interdisciplinary Knowledge

    Groundwater is invisible, but its impact is visible everywhere. Everything around us relies on groundwater, our drinking water and sanitation, our food supply and our natural environment. Yet because it is invisible, information, management and governance of groundwater is often poor and inadequate. This book contributes to UN Water Groundwater year (2022), and to the effort of “making the invisible, visible”. Through worldwide case studies ranging from the Americas (California, Brazil), to Asia (India, Iran, Lao PDR, Nepal), Africa (Malawi, Tanzania, South Africa) and the MENA region (Lebanon, Morocco, Yemen), including cases of transboundary aquifers, the chapters in this edited volume reflect important recent advances in interdisciplinary knowledge on the governance, management, practice and science-policy interfaces of groundwater.

    An insightful resource for researchers and planners in the field of environmental policies, water laws, climate change and groundwater governance, this book comes with a new Introduction. The other chapters were originally published in Water International.

    Introduction

    Raya M. Stephan, James Nickum, Philippus Wester

    Part 1: Groundwater institutions

    1. From an open-access to a state-controlled resource: the case of groundwater in the Kathmandu Valley, Nepal

    Vishnu Prasad Pandey and Futaba Kazama

    2. Pathways for effective groundwater governance in the least-developed-country context of the Lao PDR

    Paul Pavelic, Ounakone Xayviliya and Oualaphone Ongkeo

    3. Using backcasting to explore ways to improve the national water department’s contribution to good groundwater governance in South Africa

    P. Seward, Y. Xu and A. Turton

    4. Groundwater governance through institutional bricolage? Participation in Morocco’s Chtouka aquifer contract

    Annabelle Houdret and Rebecca Heinz

    Part 2: Groundwater management

    5. Exploring the future impacts of urbanization and climate change on groundwater in Arusha, Tanzania

    Tunde Olarinoye, Jan Willem Foppen, William Veerbeek, Tlhoriso Morienyane and Hans Komakech

    6. Impact of land use and occupation on potential groundwater recharge in a Brazilian savannah watershed

    Arnaldo José Cambraia Neto and Lineu Neiva Rodrigues

    7. Problems and promise of managed recharge in karstified aquifers: the example of Lebanon

    Wisam M. Khadra and Pieter J. Stuyfzand

    8. A multifaceted quantitative index for sustainability assessment of groundwater management: application for aquifers around Iran

    Bahador Zarei, Esmaeel Parizi, Seiyed Mossa Hosseini and Behzad Ataie Ashtiani

    Part 3: Groundwater users

    9. Whither collective action? Upscaling collective actions, politics and basin management in the process of ‘legitimizing’ an informal groundwater economy

    Marta Rica, Aurélien Dumont, Fermín Villarroya and Elena López-Gunn

    10. Participatory rural appraisal to assess groundwater resources in Al-Mujaylis, Tihama Coastal Plain, Yemen

    Wahib Al-Qubatee, Henk Ritzema, Adel Al-Weshali, Frank van Steenbergen and Petra J. G. J. Hellegers

    11. Federal reserved rights and California's Groundwater Management Act: resolving groundwater rights tensions in California and the western United States

    Stefanie Viktoria Caroline Schulte

    Part 4: Groundwater for irrigation

    12. Learning from the past to build the future governance of groundwater use in agriculture

    Olivier Petit, Aurélien Dumont, Stéphanie Leyronas, Quentin Ballin, Sami Bouarfa, Nicolas Faysse, Marcel Kuper, François Molle, Charlotte Alcazar, Emmanuel Durand, Ridha Ghoudi, Aline Hubert, Selin Le Visage, Imane Messaoudi, Marielle Montginoul, Seyni Ndao, Audrey Richard Ferroudji, Jean-Daniel Rinaudo, Julie Trottier, Olivia Aubriot, Mohamed Elloumi, Marc Boisson, Rhoda Fofack-Garcia, Frédéric Maurel, Dominique Rojat, Bruno Romagny and Emmanuelle Salgues

    13. Drivers of groundwater utilization in water-limited rice production systems in Nepal

    Anton Urfels, Andrew J. McDonald, Timothy J. Krupnik and Pieter R. van Oel

    14. Groundwater policies and irrigation development: a study of West Bengal, India, 1980–2016

    Tapas Singh Modak

    Part 5: Transboundary aquifers

    15. Transboundary groundwater governance in the Guarani Aquifer System: reflections from a survey of global and regional experts

    Zachary P. Sugg, Robert G. Varady, Andrea K. Gerlak, and Rafael de Grenade

    16. A methodology to identify vulnerable transboundary aquifer hotspots for multi-scale groundwater management

    Christina M. Fraser, Robert M. Kalin, Modesta Kanjaye and Zione Uka

    17. Binational reflections on pathways to groundwater security in the Mexico–United States borderlands

    Rosario Sanchez, José Agustin Breña-Naranjo, Alfonso Rivera, Randall T. Hanson, Antonio Hernández-Espriú, Rick J. Hogeboom, Anita Milman, Jude A. Benavides, Adrian Pedrozo-Acuña, Julio Cesar Soriano-Monzalvo, Sharon B. Megdal, Gabriel Eckstein and Laura Rodriguez

    18. A critical review of the transboundary aquifers in South-Eastern Europe and new insights from the EU’s water framework directive implementation process

    Charalampos Skoulikaris, Jacques Ganoulis and Alice Aureli

    Biography

    Raya Marina Stephan, IWRA fellow and former Director, is an international consultant, expert in water law. She is the Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Water International.

    James E. Nickum, IWRA Fellow, Global Reach Awardee, and former Vice-President, is the Editor in Chief of Water International, non-resident Professorial Research Associate at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London and non-resident Adjunct Senior Research Fellow at the East-West Center, Honolulu, Hawaii.

    Philippus Wester, IWRA Fellow and former Director, is Regional Programme Manager, Mountain Knowledge & Action Networks at ICIMOD and a former Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Water International.