eGROUNDWATER علم المواطن وأنظمة المعلومات المعززة القائمة على تكنولوجيا المعلومات والاتصالات لتقييم المياه الجوفية والنمذجة والإدارة التشاركية المستدامة.
Groundwater is a strategic resource in the European Union, where 55% of the domestic demand is met by ground water. Despite its importance for urban supply, agriculture is the main groundwater user in Mediterranean countries with about 72% of total estimated groundwater abstraction. In Spain, about 30% of the total irrigated area is supplied by groundwater.
A global inventory of groundwater use in agriculture conducted by FAO indicates that almost 40% of the global irrigated area is now reliant on groundwater. Widespread and largely unregulated groundwater withdrawals by agriculture have resulted in depletion and degradation of some of the world’s most accessible and high-quality aquifers.
The impacts of climate change for the water resources in southern Europe and northern Africa include a decrease in rainfall, with will pose major impacts on underground water bodies, food security, soils sustainability and reduction of the fertile surface available for food production.
One of the most critical issues on groundwater management is data scarcity. Big Data and Enhanced Information Systems (EIS) are key to overcome this obstacle by providing users and managers useful, precise and sound data and information. New and more reliable data can improve the accuracy and trustfulness of the models used for groundwater assessment and groundwater management. Furthermore, better knowledge of groundwater resources will be even more necessary in the near future when considering the increasing uncertainty on water availability due to climate and global change.
