Climate Change and Groundwater

Abstract

The Geological Society produces Special Publications about 15 to 20 times per year, and these publications are often referred to as representing the “state of the science.” Climate Change and Groundwater is certainly a prominent title, one that seeks to capture some of the fundamental research related to understanding groundwater resources in the context of global warming. In the latest Assessment Report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), it was acknowledged that groundwater use will increase as a result of the declining availability of surface water and increased global water consumption and that “there has been very little research on the impact of climate change on groundwater” (IPCC, 2007). As described by Dragoni and Sukhija in the preface of Climate Change and Groundwater , this was the rationale for a climate change and groundwater session at the 32nd International Geological Congress (IGC) held in 2004, from which the papers of this Special Publication were derived. Climate Change and Groundwater is a collection of 13 papers that span various case studies on observed (or predicted) responses of groundwater systems to variations in climate. The introductory chapter by Dragoni and Sukhija provides an overview of what is generally termed “climate change” and includes a synopsis of the IPCC findings that are relevant to the field of hydrogeology. While they identify that there is a “heated dispute” regarding the cause of present climatic behavior, the focus of the book is a better understanding of the impact of …