WaterUnderground

WaterUnderground

Groundwater—the world’s largest freshwater store— is a life-sustaining resource that supplies water to billions of people, plays a central part in irrigated agriculture and influences the health of many ecosystems. Water Underground is a groundwater nerd blog written by a global collective of hydrogeologic researchers for water resource professionals, academics and anyone interested in groundwater, research, teaching and supervision. The blog, started by Tom Gleeson and managed by Xander Huggins, is the first blog hosted on both the EGU blogs and the AGU blogosphere.

A do-it-yourself Jupyter notebook to constrain sediment permeability

A do-it-yourself Jupyter notebook to constrain sediment permeability

Post by Elco Luijendijk, Junior lecturer in the Department of Structural Geology and Geodynamics at Georg-August-Universität Göttingen and WaterUnderground founder Tom Gleeson (@water_undergrnd), Associate Professor in the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of Victoria. Most of the groundwater on our planet is located in sedimentary rocks. This is why it is important to know how eas ...[Read More]

Urban water underground: How green infrastructure makes it visible

Urban water underground: How green infrastructure makes it visible

Post by Theodore Lim, assistant professor of Urban Affairs and Planning at Virginia Tech. He researches the socio-hydrology of green infrastructure planning and implementation. In order for people to care about something, to value it, they have to be able to see it and experience it. This point should not be taken lightly. So much about decision-making and policy-making depends on how much public ...[Read More]

Doing Hydrogeology in R

Doing Hydrogeology in R

Post by Sam Zipper (@ZipperSam), current Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Victoria and soon-to-be research scientist with the Kansas Geological Survey at the University of Kansas. Using programming languages to interact with, analyze, and visualize data is an increasingly important skill for hydrogeologists to have. Coding-based science makes it easier to process and visualize large amount ...[Read More]

Update on the groundwater situation in Cape Town

Update on the groundwater situation in Cape Town

Post by Jared van Rooyen, PhD student in Earth Science at Stellenbosch University, in South Africa. When the Cape Town water crisis first emerged it took almost a year before active contingencies were put in place. Four major ideas were proposed: (1) Intense water restrictions for municipal water users, (2) greywater recycling facilities, (3) groundwater augmentation of water supplies, and (4) des ...[Read More]

Data sharing: an update on new and existing initiatives

Data sharing: an update on new and existing initiatives

Post by Anne Van Loon, Gemma Coxon, and Bentje Brauns. Last year, Anne Van Loon wrote about data sharing initiatives in hydrology (“Data drought or data flood?” 28 May 2018). This post gives an update on existing and new initiatives. CAMELS (Catchment Attributes and MEteorology for Large-sample Studies)  The CAMELS datasets are expanding: from the United States and Chile to Great Britain and Austr ...[Read More]

Video: Linking water planetary boundaries and UN Sustainable Development Goals

Video: Linking water planetary boundaries and UN Sustainable Development Goals

Water Underground creator Tom Gleeson prepared this quick research video (with no more than a toothbrush, a file holder, and a doughnut, in one take!) for the Ripples project meeting at the Stockholm Resilience Centre, that was held in April. In this video, he talks about using doughnut economics for linking water planetary boundaries and UN Sustainable Development Goals. Display content from Vime ...[Read More]

Dowsing for interesting water science – what’s exciting at EGU 2019?

Dowsing for interesting water science – what’s exciting at EGU 2019?

Joint post by Sam Zipper (an EGU first-timer) and Anne Van Loon (an EGU veteran). Every April, the European Geophysical Union (EGU) holds an annual meeting in Vienna. With thousands of presentations spread out over a full week, it can feel like you’re surrounded by a deluge of water-related options – particularly since the conference center is on an island!  To help narrow down the schedule! ...[Read More]

Have you ever wondered if groundwater is connected to climate?

Have you ever wondered if groundwater is connected to climate?

Post by Tom Gleeson,  Assistant Professor in Civil Engineering at the University of Victoria. ‘Groundwater-surface water interactions’ has become standard hydrologic lexicon and a perennial favorite session title at various conferences… but how often do you hear the phrase ‘groundwater-climate interactions’? A group of hydrologists, hydrogeologists, atmospheric scientists and geodesists that met i ...[Read More]

Celestial groundwater – the subsurface plumbing for extraterrestrial life support

Celestial groundwater – the subsurface plumbing for extraterrestrial life support

Post by Kevin Befus,  Assistant Professor in Civil and Architectural Engineering at the University of Wyoming. Have you ever taken a walk on the beach during a lowering (ebbing) tide and see mini-rivers grow and create beautiful drainage patterns before your eyes? These short-lived groundwater seepage features (Fig. 1A) are tiny (and fast) analogs of how groundwater has shaped some parts of Mars! ...[Read More]

Of Karst! – short episodes about karst

Of Karst! – short episodes about karst

Post by Andreas Hartmann,  Assistant Professor in Hydrological Modeling and Water Resources at the University of Freiburg. Episode 4 – Karst Groundwater: quick and slow at the same time? We often associate groundwater with large water storage and very slow water movement for instance compared to rivers. But is it possible that groundwater flow can be as quick as stream flow and, at the same aquife ...[Read More]