Water Underground

Why so salty? Coastal groundwater quality under threat

WaterUnderground 11th August 2022

View over the Llobregat delta, where groundwater quality suffers from seawater intrusion https://web.archive.org/web/20161015110631/http://www.panoramio.com/photo/33131577

Guest contribution from Daniel Kretschmer, University of Potsdam European groundwater quality is deteriorated by seawater intrusion, the displacement of freshwater by a landward movement of seawater (Custodio, 2010). Just south of Barcelona, the deep confined aquifer at the Llobregat river delta has experienced SWI of several kilometers due to intensive groundwater abstraction in the 20th century ...[Read More]

Our enduring fascination with groundwater springs

WaterUnderground 27th July 2022

The middle zone of the Gerecse Mountains in Hungary via Wikimedia Commons. Public Domain.

by David Litwin, licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Article: Springs regarded as hydraulic features and interpreted in the context of basin-scale groundwater flow Authors: Tóth, Á., Kovács, S., Kovács, J., & Mádl-Szőnyi, J. O Fount Bandusia, brighter than crystal, worthy of sweet wine and flowers, tomorrow shalt thou be honoured with a firstling ...[Read More]

Groundwater pumping poses worldwide threat to riverine ecosystems

WaterUnderground 3rd October 2019

When will critical river flows be reached where you live?

Post by Inge de Graaf, Assistant Professor of Hydrological Environmental Systems at the University of Freiburg. With the climate strikes happening all over the world, I sometimes wish I had a crystal ball that would allow me to look into the future. Or even better, a crystal ball that could show me different scenarios of what will happen if we change, or not. Well, I do not have a crystal ball, bu ...[Read More]

Groundwater and a ‘green drought’

WaterUnderground 24th September 2019

Post by Andy Baker, professor in the Connected Waters Initiative Centre at UNSW Sydney, Andreas Hartmann, assistant professor in Hydrological Modeling and Water Resources at the University of Freiburg, and Romane Berthelin, PhD student in Hydrological Modeling and Water Resources at the University of Freiburg. Here in New South Wales (NSW) in southeastern Australia, a long-running drought continue ...[Read More]

Shedding light on the invisible: addressing potential groundwater contamination by plastic microfibers

WaterUnderground 6th September 2019

Koh Kong, Cambodia (picture by Viviana Re, 2016).

Post by Viviana Re, researcher at the University of Pisa in Italy. You can follow Viviana on Twitter at @biralnas. Until recently, the topic of plastic pollution was relatively unknown to the general public, although the problem was already under everyone’s very eyes. Indeed, plastic pollution has become one of the most debated issues over the last few years, in some cases even overshadowing ...[Read More]

Doing Hydrogeology in R

WaterUnderground 25th June 2019

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]

Data sharing: an update on new and existing initiatives

WaterUnderground 16th May 2019

Word cloud of blog post “Data drought or data flood?” 28 May 2018

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

WaterUnderground 7th May 2019

Tom Gleeson talking about doughnut economics and showing great doughnut eating restraint.

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 "Linking wat ...[Read More]

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

WaterUnderground 5th April 2019

Is that a crowd of geoscientists wandering through Vienna?

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?

WaterUnderground 1st April 2019

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]