WaterUnderground

science communicatin

Video: Linking water planetary boundaries and UN Sustainable Development Goals

7th May 2019
Video: Linking water planetary boundaries and UN Sustainable Development Goals
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.   Curious about why ...[Read More]

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

5th April 2019
Dowsing for interesting water science – what’s exciting at EGU 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?

1st April 2019
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

25th March 2019
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

15th March 2019
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]

Groundwater and Education – Part two

2nd August 2018
Groundwater and Education – Part two

Post by Viviana Re, postdoctoral researcher at the University of Pavia (Università di Pavia), in Italy. You can follow Viviana on Twitter at @biralnas. Part two of a two-part series on groundwater and education by Viviana. __________________________________________________ In my last post (“Drawing out groundwater (from the well)”) I wrote about the reasons why, as groundwater scientists, we shoul ...[Read More]

How deep does groundwater go? Mining (dark) data from the depths

19th July 2018
How deep does groundwater go? Mining (dark) data from the depths

Post by Kevin Befus, Assistant Professor at the College of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of Wyoming, in the United States. __________________________________________________ We’ve all been asked (or do the asking), “where does your water come from?” This is a fundamental question for establishing a series of additional questions that can ultimately help define strategies for va ...[Read More]

Data drought or data flood?

28th May 2018
Data drought or data flood?

Post by Anne Van Loon, Lecturer in Physical Geography (Water sciences) at the University of Birmingham, in the United Kingdom. __________________________________________________ The basis for (almost) all scientific work, at least in the earth and environmental sciences, is DATA. We all need data to search for the answers to our questions. There are a number of options to get hold of data; we can ...[Read More]

Crowdfunding Science: What worked and what didn’t, who pledged and how did we reach them?

6th March 2018
Crowdfunding Science: What worked and what didn’t, who pledged and how did we reach them?
Jared Van Rooyen (at centre), pictured alongside research group members Yaa Agyare-Dwomoh (left) and Zita Harilall (right).

Post by Jared van Rooyen, MSc candidate in Earth Science at Stellenbosch University, in South Africa. Part two of three in a Crowdfunding Science series by Jared. ___________________________________________________________ During March of 2017, myself and a group of students supervised by Dr. Jodie Miller of Stellenbosch University’s Earth Science department (South Africa) completed a 5-week long ...[Read More]

A cool new collectible: Water

2nd March 2018
A cool new collectible: Water

Post by Matt Herod, Waste and Decommissioning Project Officer for the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, and Adjunct Professor in Earth and Environmental Science at the University of Ottawa, in Ottawa, Canada. _______________________________________________ I have always been a mineral and fossil collector. It was a hobby that stuck and blossomed into a career. I still collect minerals and fossil ...[Read More]