Groundwater resource management is closely linked to climate change impacts and is important for resilience. IWRA’s 2022 World Water Day webinars aimed to enable global citizens to ‘see’ groundwater and take a personal view, stance and action.
The speakers explored challenges, tipping points and triggers for groundwater resource management, and how creativity and innovation offer possibilities and opportunities for the next generations of groundwater resource professionals.
Focus of the IWRA WWD Webinars: Each of the two webinars followed the same format, yet involved different sets of speakers. The webinars were interactive – in that speakers were asked a series of questions to strike a conversation about the future of groundwater, thinking to 2050 and beyond. The speakers envisioned scenarios that included the potential outcomes if groundwater is not managed sustainably as well as what the world might look like if groundwater is made visible. Moreover, speakers were asked to either envision worst case and innovative cases either as it relates to a specific geographic area, a specific sector (e.g., food, energy, ecosystems), or a specific aspect of groundwater (supply, quality, measuring & evaluating, legal/institutional, etc).