Groundwater research key to optimising resource
GROUNDWATER is an invisible resource, presenting challenges for monitoring, modelling, and basic understanding. It provides drinking water for almost 50% of the global population and represents 99% of the available freshwater resource on the planet. Groundwater science has grown tremendously over recent decades through the development of novel monitoring technologies and improved computational technologies that enable sophisticated modelling.
Groundwater data from sources ranging from new satellites to lowcost well monitoring have begun to produce new insights. However, communicating how groundwater interacts with the rest of the hydrological cycle to the wider public and decision makers remains difficult. Groundwater has been identified as a strategic resource to meet basic human needs for potable water and food production, especially in arid regions.
Factors impacting on groundwater resources are population growth, urban expansion and climate change.
The overall aim should therefore be to optimise groundwater use for all communities through an integrated management approach as we navigate a path to resilience.
In the wake of Heritage Month, we need to appreciate that South Africa’s natural resources are also an integral part of our heritage and we must ensure that our country’s heritage is preserved for generations to come.
Following a period of serious water shortages in the early 1970s and poorly funded research institutes providing national leadership, the Water Research Commission (WRC) was established in 1971 to generate knowledge and promote the country’s water research needs. More importantly, it leveraged from research and development tools to make South Africa more competitive from a water security perspective.
The diversification of the country’s water supply mix from traditional surface water resources and rural groundwater supply schemes remains a key strategy for implementation through innovative solutions. Coupled with demand-side solutions from this and other business divisions it is possible to significantly improve our water security vulnerabilities at all scales.
The WRC’s core process is to not only fund research but to create new knowledge, sharing, dissemination and transfer of knowledge for innovation and impact. This should be seen as a way of curbing the triple challenges of poverty, unemployment and inequality.
The WRC this year is celebrating 50 years of funding and undertaking groundbreaking groundwater research. The legal status of groundwater changed from “private water” to representing a significant national resource, and so it became part of Integrated Water Resource Management in terms of the National Water Act, 36 of 1998.
The assumption 50 years ago was that the yield of South Africa’s groundwater resources would not be sufficient to contribute significantly to the water requirements of the country. Research in the 1970s focused primarily on issues of safe yield and delineation of aquifer systems in groundwater control areas, groundwater dependant towns and dolomitic aquifers. Managed aquifer recharge studies were also initiated.
In the 1980s-90s research on groundwater occurrence in fractured rock aquifers began focusing on mapping groundwater resources and identifying the groundwater regions. Because we predominantly have fractured rock aquifers systems (~90%), South African know-how in this domain remains respected.
The research community started concentrating in the 1990s on matters related to groundwater contamination and quality, as well as groundwater/ surface-water interactions and groundwater dependent ecosystems.
Research in the late 1990s/early 2000s increased in scope, interdisciplinarity and complexity, considering meeting basic human needs and human-induced changes in hydrogeologic fluxes and stores. The new focus now looks at capitalising on 4IR tools and applications to better use and make predictions about future groundwater use. Advances in remote sensing missions, atmospheric and land surface models, social media and other internet-related platforms provide new sources of data for groundwater.
However, we need to refrain from using old techniques to make predictions and expecting the same results, but instead be brave enough to embrace big data analytics, internet of things, machine learning and AI in pushing the boundaries of the new frontiers in groundwater science.