This book provides a comprehensive analysis of the benefits and challenges of intensifying groundwater irrigation in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) for improving smallholder agrarian livelihoods. Only about 3% of the groundwater resources of Sub-Saharan Africa are used for irrigated agriculture despite the subcontinent’s relative abundance of groundwater. The majority of the region’s smallholders are highly dependent on seasonal dryland cropping, making them extremely vulnerable to uncertain weather patterns and droughts. Improved irrigation capabilities through sustainable groundwater development could unleash smallholder farming and make it a major driver of economic growth, poverty reduction, climate resilience, and improved food security. So, why is groundwater so underused? Tapping into groundwater requires a major shift in farming practices and it has its own challenges and requirements – smallholder access to land and finance for irrigation infrastructure and equipment, gendered and equitable adoption options. This whole list is framed in terms of what the smallholder farmers need. Hence, this should also be put in this context, supply chains, energy access, resource availability, and institutional support. The chapters in this book present a picture that is not only heterogeneous across the region, but also hold some common denominators. They serve to enrich the discourse and help better understand the barriers along the pathways toward the sustainable and transformative adoption of groundwater irrigation. The scientific information provided herein would be of interest to researchers, practitioners, decision makers and planners with interest in the region. This book was originally published as a Special Issue of Water International journal.

This book describes and analyses the diversity of possible approaches and policy pathways to implement sustainable groundwater development, based on a comparative analysis of numerous quantitative management case studies from France and Australia. This unique book brings together water professionals and academics involved for several decades in groundwater policy making, planning or operational management to reflect on their experience with developing and implementing groundwater management policy. The data and analysis presented accordingly makes a significant contribution to the empirical water management literature by providing novel, real world insights unpublished elsewhere. The originality of the contributions also lies in the different disciplinary perspectives (hydrogeology, economics, planning and social sciences in particular) adopted in many chapters. The book offers a unique comparative analysis of France, Australia and experiences in countries such as Chile and the US to identify similarities, but also fundamental differences, which are analysed and presented as alternative policy options – these differences being mainly related to the role of the state, the community and market mechanisms in groundwater management.

This paper explains basic groundwater and well-drilling concepts and shows how they can be employed to strengthen and expand water development programs.

This book deals with the challenges for efficient groundwater management, with a focus on South Asia and India, providing a balanced presentation of theory and field practice using a multidisciplinary approach. Groundwater of South Asia is increasingly confronted with overuse and deteriorating quality and therefore requires urgent attention. Management of the stressed groundwater systems is an extremely complex proposition because of the intricate hydrogeological set-up of the region. Strategies for sustainable management must involve a combination of supply-side and demand-side measures depending on the regional setting and socio-economic situations. As a consequence, the challenges of efficient groundwater management require not only a clear understanding of the aquifer configuration, but also demand for the development of a comprehensive database of the groundwater occurrences and flow systems in each hydrogeological setting. In addition, drilling and well construction methods that are appropriate to different hydrogeological formations need to be implemented as well as real-time monitoring of the status of the groundwater use. Also corrective measures for groundwater that is threatened with depletion and quality deterioration need to be installed. Finally, the legal framework of groundwater needs to be rearticulated according to the common property aspect of groundwater. These challenges should revolve around effective groundwater governance by creating an atmosphere to support and empower community-based systems of decision-making and revisit the existing legal framework and groundwater management institutions by fostering community initiatives. This book is relevant for academics, professionals, administrators, policy makers, and economists concerned with various aspects of groundwater science and management.

Groundwater is essential to life and to maintaining Earth's water cycle. In the face of growing threats to this invaluable resource, recent advances in research and analysis - notably in numerical simulation and data processing with computers - are bringing rapid changes in dynamic methodology for groundwater management and modeling. This book contains the latest updates from the field of groundwater science and engineering, organized around five major topics: Optimization of groundwater resources in basins, Groundwater pollution and remediation technologies, Underground development and groundwater technologies, Interaction between surface and subsurface water, and Reliability of numerical methods and scaling in geohydraulics. This collection of more than 80 papers by leading specialists provides a valuable source of information for researchers, engineers, and students in the field of groundwater resources and management.

A complete treatment of the theory and practice of groundwater engineering, The Handbook of Groundwater Engineering, Second Edition provides a current and detailed review of how to model the flow of water and the transport of contaminants both in the unsaturated and saturated zones, covers the production of groundwater and the remediation of contaminated groundwater.

Groundwater is Africa‘s most precious natural resource, providing reliable water supplies for many people. Further development of groundwater resources is fundamental to increasing access to safe water across the continent to meet coverage targets and reduce poverty. There is also an increasing interest in the use of groundwater for irrigated

This text is written by a number of authors from different countries and disciplines, affording the reader an invaluable and unbiased perspective on the subject of intensive groundwater development. Based on information gathered from the experience of many countries over the last decades, the text aims to present a clear discussion on the conventional hydrogeological aspects of intensive groundwater use, along with the ecological, legal, institutional, economic and social challenges. Divided into two main sections, the first group of authors put forward the positive and negative aspects of intensive groundwater use, whilst a second group provide an overview of the situation specific countries face as a consequence of this phenomenon. Fully revised and up-to-date, Groundwater Intensive Use makes a significant number of discoveries in a subject area that is topical in today's climate.

Groundwater is humanity’s most vital supply of freshwater. Freshwater resources contained in aquifer systems globally are two orders of magnitude greater than those found in all rivers, lakes, and other surface freshwaters combined. Moreover, approximately one half of the world’s population today is dependent on groundwater for its basic needs. While these truisms are widely acknowledged, an additional reality is now recognized – many of these subsurface freshwater reservoirs are actually transboundary formations shared amongst two or more nations. In fact, around 600 transboundary aquifers have been identified worldwide. They underlie the territory of nearly every non-island nation and are found in both humid and arid environments. Surprisingly, though, only a handful of transboundary aquifers worldwide are subject to any type of formal or informal international agreement. Transboundary groundwater resources are now receiving growing attention among the international community. Questions are being raised about how they should be managed, allocated and protected, what rights aquifer riparians can enjoy, and what responsibilities these aquifer states might owe to neighbouring aquifer riparians. This book considers all these various aspects of the management and regulation of transboundary groundwater resources. It also presents case studies and explores recent efforts to engage the international community on best practices and global standards for governing transboundary aquifers. As communities and nations continue to expand their reliance on these critical sources of freshwater, they will have to address such issues and develop governance regimes for these shared subsurface resources. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Water International.