GTool: A new user-driven tool aiming at achieving a sustainable groundwater governance in Mediterranean aquifers

Abstract

Climate change scenarios obtained by models foresee changes in the availability of water resources that make it necessary to improve their management, especially for groundwater, as they are one of the most important, but at the same time most vulnerable, sources of fresh water on the planet. Groundwater governance can be defined as "the process by which groundwater is managed through the application of elements such as accountability, participation, availability of information, transparency, customs and policy." The manner in which this governance is carried out can have direct implications for the status of groundwater, both qualitatively and quantitatively, hence its importance when analysing the status of an aquifer or groundwater body. The objective of this contribution is to present GTool, a brand new digital and user-driven tool developed in the framework of the EU PRIMA project GOTHAM, which aims at establishing a new groundwater governance model based on a bottom-up approach. One of the modules that GTool integrates, called “Groundwater Response Module”, has been designed with the objective of forecasting the most probable groundwater body status according to a selection of variables. The input data used to assess the current and expected status of the aquifer comprises groundwater quality trends, prediction of scarcity and drought indexes, the potential use of non-conventional water resources (reused water), the increase of available resources by the implementation of managed aquifer recharge (MAR) techniques, potential groundwater quality restoration by means of remediation techniques, and current groundwater governance. This methodology has been applied in Campo de Dalías-Sierra de Gádor groundwater body (Southern Spain), which is characterised by large groundwater abstraction (mainly for the irrigation of greenhouses crops), steep and lasting drops of groundwater levels and subsequent groundwater quality degradation by seawater intrusion and salinity increase. Results show that, despite the good groundwater governance and high MAR and non-conventional water resources potential currently existing in the area, Campo de Dalías-Sierra de Gádor groundwater body is expected to have a ‘bad’ status in the medium term, principally due to the forecasted scarcity and drought indexes and, secondarily, upward trends regarding salinity (electrical conductivity, chloride) and nitrate contents.