Hydrogeologists are a diverse group, in part because we come to this discipline from so many different paths. We come from different academic programs in engineering, geological sciences and environmental sciences. These differences in backgrounds create a diversity of perspectives, which enriches hydrogeology and allows for dynamic collaborations. Engineers and geophysicists are known for brin ...[Read More]
Groundwater and Agriculture: Tapping the Hidden Benefits
By: Sam Zipper, Postdoctoral Fellow, McGill University/University of Victoria When people think of groundwater in agricultural landscapes, pumping and irrigation are usually the first thing that comes to mind. However, groundwater can have a more subtle but extremely important impact on crop production when we decide to leave it underground: When there is shallow groundwater beneath an agricultura ...[Read More]
How did our planet get its water?
Post by WaterUnderground contributors Elco Luijendijk and Stefan Peters from the University of Göttingen, in Germany. After my first ever scientific presentation, someone in the audience asked a question that caught me off guard: “Where does the groundwater come from?”. “Ehm, from rainfall”, I answered. The answer seemed obvious at the time. However, we did not realize at the time that this is a ...[Read More]
Crop kites
Post by WaterUnderground contributor Mikhail Smilovic. Mikhail is a PhD candidate in the Department of Civil Engineering at McGill University, in Quebec. Crops use water for photosynthesis, absorbing nutrients, and transpiration, or the plant-equivalent of sweating. A crop may experience water-stress if the soil surrounding the roots is not adequately wet, and this stress will affect the crop dif ...[Read More]
Limits to global groundwater use
Post by WaterUnderground contributor Inge de Graaf. Inge is a postdoc fellow at Colorado School of Mines, in the USA. Groundwater is the world’s most important source of freshwater. It supplies 2 billion people with drinking water and is used for irrigation of the largest share of the world’s food supply. However, in many regions around the world, groundwater reserves are depleting as the re ...[Read More]
Water Underground has a new home on the EGU Network Blogs
The newest addition to the Network Blogs 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. Water Underground was started, and is currently led, by Tom Gleeson. It is the first blog to be jointly hosted by the EGU Blogs and the AGU blogosphere. W ...[Read More]
Socio-hydrogeology: bridging the gap between science and society
Authored by Viviana Re, Marie Curie Research Fellow at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Italy Sustainability, integrated water resources management, climate change, groundwater governance. These are some of the currently trending topics in hydrogeology, as reflected by their widespread use as keywords in recently published literature. Indeed, hydrogeologists are at the forefront of guaranteeing t ...[Read More]
Brackish groundwater resources: is development advisable?
Authored by: Grant Ferguson – Assistant Professor in the Department of Civil & Geological Engineering at the University Saskatchewan Groundwater makes up a large fraction of the Earth’s freshwater but that represents only a part of groundwater resources. Large volumes of groundwater are saline, with some reaching salinities of over ten times that of seawater. Brackish water is an intriguing pa ...[Read More]
The great American groundwater road trip: Interstate 80 over the Ogallala Aquifer
Authored by: Sam Zipper – Postdoctoral Researcher in the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison In late July, my wife and I loaded the dog into the car, cranked up the water-related tunes, and drove over a few million cubic meters of water. No, we haven’t traded in our sedan for an amphibious vehicle – rather, we were driving west, a ...[Read More]
FloPy: A Python interface for MODFLOW that kicks tail!
Authored by: Kevin Befus – Assistant professor, Department of Civil and Architectural Engineering at the University of Wyoming Groundwater modeling is getting better. Models are becoming more sophisticated with simpler interfaces to add, extract, and process the data. So, at first appearances, the U.S. Geological Survey’s (USGS) recent release of a Python module named FloPy for preparing, ru ...[Read More]