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The aim of this book is to document for the first time the dimensions and requirements of effective integrated groundwater management (IGM). Groundwater management is a formidable challenge, one that remains one of humanity’s foremost priorities. It has become a largely non-renewable resource that is overexploited in many parts of the world. In the 21st century, the issue moves from how to simply obtain the water we need to how we manage it sustainably for future generations, future economies, and future ecosystems. The focus then becomes one of understanding the drivers and current state of the groundwater resource, and restoring equilibrium to at-risk aquifers. Many interrelated dimensions, however, come to bear when trying to manage groundwater effectively. An integrated approach to groundwater necessarily involves many factors beyond the aquifer itself, such as surface water, water use, water quality, and ecohydrology. Moreover, the science by itself can only define the fundamental bounds of what is possible; effective IGM must also engage the wider community of stakeholders to develop and support policy and other socioeconomic tools needed to realize effective IGM. In order to demonstrate IGM, this book covers theory and principles, embracing: 1) an overview of the dimensions and requirements of groundwater management from an international perspective; 2) the scale of groundwater issues internationally and its links with other sectors, principally energy and climate change; 3) groundwater governance with regard to principles, instruments and institutions available for IGM; 4) biophysical constraints and the capacity and role of hydroecological and hydrogeological science including water quality concerns; and 5) necessary tools including models, data infrastructures, decision support systems and the management of uncertainty. Examples of effective, and failed, IGM are given. Throughout, the importance of the socioeconomic context that connects all effective IGM is emphasized. Taken as a whole, this work relates the many facets of effective IGM, from the catchment to global perspective.
Pesticide pollution of groundwater results from agricultural practices, the properties of the substance and its behavior in the soil environment, and the characteristics of aquifers and their vulnerability. Pesticide Risk in Groundwater provides an overview of the main issues concerning pesticide pollution of groundwater worldwide. The book is divided into five sections. Section I reviews experimental data of groundwater monitoring to indicate the extent of the problem on a global basis. Based on this evaluation, herbicides are examined in depth. Section II describes predictive approaches to estimate the distribution and fate of pesticides, and includes a chapter devoted to hydrogeological aspects affecting the vulnerability of aquifers. The third section evaluates pesticides in relation to their toxicology. It critically examines the criteria and procedures by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to define quality objectives, and compares the monitoring data on pesticides in groundwater with their quality objectives. Section IV evaluates various strategies to control and prevent groundwater pollution problems. Different water treatment options are described from a technical and economic point of view. The main preventative actions include the chemical approach, the agronomic approach, and the land use approach. The final section reviews the state of the art of drinking water regulations in the EEC, the United States, and other OECD countries. The author describes the economic implications of groundwater pollution and its control and exemplifies with a real case study.
There is a general consensus that for the next few decades at least, the Earth will continue its warming. This will inevitably bring about serious environmental problems. For human society, the most severe will be those related to alterations of the hydrological cycle, which is already heavily influenced by human activities. Climate change will directly affect groundwater recharge, groundwater quality and the freshwater-seawater interface. The variations of groundwater storage inevitably entail a variety of geomorphological and engineering effects. In the areas where water resources are likely to diminish, groundwater will be one of the main solutions to prevent drought. In spite of its paramount importance, the issue of 'Climate Change and Groundwater' has been neglected. This volume presents some of the current understanding of the topic.
Non-point agricultural contaminants, such as nitrogen, may lower groundwater quality and thereby impose health and environmental risks. The objective of this study is to evaluate tax policies to control agricultural pollutants in a spatially heterogeneous and dynamic setting. The focus of the study is non-point source nitrate contamination of groundwater in Treasure Valley in Malheur County, Oregon. Tax policies to control groundwater nitrates are evaluated utilizing a spatially distributed, dynamic programming model linking the economic and physical processes that determine groundwater quality. Economic and physical processes vary across space and time because of locational (spatial) differences in soil type. Representation of these variations is important when evaluating tax policies. Taxes on unit nitrogen input based on different measures of nitrates (groundwater versus soil water) and at different levels of aggregation (soil zone versus the entire region) are evaluated. The different tax schemes are compared to determine which achieves a standard for nitrate in groundwater at least cost to producers (in terms of lost profit). The tax rate is increased incrementally until predicted (ambient) groundwater nitrate levels at simulated observation well sites meet or exceed a standard for groundwater nitrates. An important implication from this study is the need to base groundwater regulatory policies on ambient groundwater quality and not an intermediate quality indicator, such as soil water quality. A regulatory policy based on soil water quality is inferior relative to a policy based on ambient groundwater quality. Additionally, a spatial tax achieves the standard for groundwater nitrates at a lower cost to producers than a uniform tax, however, the benefits received by utilizing a spatial tax are probably not sufficient to cover the added costs of such a tax. All tax policies require substantial change in agricultural practices at a large cost to producers in the study region. This would call into question the political feasibility of such policies. While tax policies were the focus of this investigation, an analysis of nitrogen input restrictions indicates that other control policies and new technologies may achieve the standard for groundwater nitrates at least cost to producers in the study area.