{"id":19611,"date":"2022-03-22T10:32:39","date_gmt":"2022-03-22T10:32:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.innovationnewsnetwork.com\/?p=19611"},"modified":"2022-03-22T10:32:39","modified_gmt":"2022-03-22T10:32:39","slug":"world-water-day-shining-light-importance-groundwater","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.innovationnewsnetwork.com\/world-water-day-shining-light-importance-groundwater\/19611\/","title":{"rendered":"World Water Day shining light on the importance of groundwater"},"content":{"rendered":"
From the Murray-Darling system to the Great Artesian Basin, \u2018invisible\u2019 underground groundwater is often the only available water supply across the vast majority of Australia where its annual contribution to GDP is estimated at more than $6.8bn a year.<\/p>\n
However, an excessive overuse of groundwater during droughts<\/a> and aquifer depletion has already seen water crises. This includes emergencies in Australia\u2019s \u2018food bowl,\u2019 the Murray-Darling Basin (MDB), California, and Cape Town in South Africa, with more likely to follow. This is due to groundwater management being\u00a0largely reactive and unlikely to avert more crises as climate change accelerates and populations expand.<\/p>\n Globally, the demand to manage freshwater supplies is rising by the day, with the United Nations issuing a critical warning for large tracts of highly populated, other arid, and semi-arid countries around the world, if more regulations are not put in place on groundwater. A 2009 World Resources Group report forecasted that the world would face a 40% water deficit by 2030 under a business-as-usual scenario.<\/p>\n \u201cGroundwater makes up almost all of the available freshwater on our planet: 97% of fresh water on earth lies in the ground beneath our feet,\u201d explained Flinders University<\/a> Distinguished Professor of Hydrogeology Craig Simmons, a lead contributor to the UN World Water Development Report 2022<\/a>\u00a0that was released today on World Water Day (22 March 2022).<\/p>\nWhy are groundwater resources poorly managed and misunderstood?<\/h3>\n