WaterUnderground

student and young water leaders

Toasting the end of the year of groundwater with a Summit in Paris

Toasting the end of the year of groundwater with a Summit in Paris

By Tom Gleeson,  Jared van Rooyen and Viviana Re Here at Water Underground we’ve been loving the variety of online, hybrid and (yes, finally!) in person meetings since the World Water Day on March 22, which celebrated groundwater for the first time ever.  We are looking forward to the UN Water Summit on Groundwater on Dec 7 – 8 in Paris, France and online. UNESCO has developed this list of events ...[Read More]

AGU Hydrology Students talk JEDI, awards, and recognizing student success at AGU townhall

AGU Hydrology Students talk JEDI, awards, and recognizing student success at AGU townhall

By David Litwin At the American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting in December 2021, the AGU Hydrology Section Student Subcommittee (H3S) convened a townhall “Coming Together After Being Apart…” where the AGU Hydrology Section leadership were available for questions from the community, updates on current activities, and plans for future section initiatives. The conversation seemed important to share w ...[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]

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]

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

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

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]

An alternate career path for Groundwater Science-Engineering PhDs

An alternate career path for Groundwater Science-Engineering PhDs

Post by Jim Roy, Research Scientist at Environment and Climate Change Canada. _______________________________________________ A recent editorial in Nature highlighted the relative scarcity of academic positions available to graduating PhD students (Many junior scientists need to take a hard look at their job prospects; 25 October, 2017). It notes that “it has been evident for years that internatio ...[Read More]

Western water wells are going dry

Western water wells are going dry

Post by Scott Jasechko, Assistant Professor of Water Resources at the University of Calgary, in Canada, and by Debra Perrone, Postdoctoral Research Scholar at Stanford University, in the United States of America. __________________________________________________ Wells are excavated structures, dug, drilled or driven into the ground to access groundwater for drinking, cleaning, irrigating, and coo ...[Read More]

Crowdfunding Science: A personal journey toward a public campaign

Crowdfunding Science: A personal journey toward a public campaign

Post by Jared van Rooyen, MSc candidate in Earth Science at Stellenbosch University, in South Africa. Part one of three in a Crowdfunding Science series by Jared. ___________________________________________________________ When my supervisor, Dr Jodie Miller, suggested to me last year that we should look at crowdfunding as a way to potentially to fund my master’s project, I had no idea of what I w ...[Read More]

What is the volume (in kegs) of groundwater is stored on earth?

What is the volume (in kegs) of groundwater is stored on earth?

Last week I gave a ‘blue drinks’  presentation for a networking evening for the Victoria chapter of the Canadian Water Resources Association entitled “How much groundwater is on earth?” based on our paper from Nature Geoscience last year. Since the night was hosted at Philips Brewery, an awesome local brewery (who makes Blue Buck, the perfect blue drink, and lots of other g ...[Read More]

Research mini-conference in fourth year groundwater class

Research mini-conference in fourth year groundwater class

Fourth year and graduate students led a fun mini-conference during class in Groundwater Hydrology (CIVE 445, Civil Engineering at University of Victoria) yesterday. Local consulting and government hydrogeologists joined, making the students both nervous and excited to be presenting to professionals with up to forty years of groundwater experience. The presentations were the culmination of a term-l ...[Read More]