Indications of recent warm and dry summers' impact on private wells for drinking-water supply in Germany: a review of press articles

Abstract Climatic changes lead to seasonal droughts with declining groundwater levels, and – especially in rural regions – private wells in the upper aquifer might fall dry. However, only limited information and no systematic administrative reporting of the extent are available for Germany yet. Therefore, a systematic analysis of newspaper articles as a promising source of information was conducted for the extraordinarily hot summers of 2018, 2019 and 2020. The results of the databases' search were analysed with respect to frequency and local and regional hotspots, relations to climatic data, extent of the reported dry-fallings and emergency water supply. The analysis indicates hotspots particularly for the federal states of Saxony, where a subsidy programme for connecting to the public water supply was reissued in 2019, for Bavaria and North Rhine-Westphalia. Emergency supply was realised through various approaches. It was partly required until the winter months and did not always have drinking-water quality. As private wells are particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change, their operators should be involved as a stakeholder group in future discussions about allocating water resources to increasingly competing uses in periods of scarcity.

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Significance of private water supply wells in a rural Nevada area as a route of exposure to aqueous arsenic

Journal of Water and Health ◽

10.2166/wh.2005.044 ◽

2005 ◽

Vol 3 (3) ◽

pp. 305-312 ◽

Cited By ~ 10

Author(s):

Mark Walker ◽

Marnee Benson ◽

W. Douglass Shaw

Keyword(s):

Drinking Water ◽

Water Supply ◽

Rural Areas ◽

Tap Water ◽

Water Supplies ◽

Educational Effort ◽

Adverse Health Effects ◽

Route Of Exposure ◽

Private Wells ◽

High Arsenic

In many rural areas domestic drinking water needs are met by a mixture of public water supplies and private water supplies. Private supplies are not subject to the regulations and management requirements of the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA). Amendments to the SDWA recently lowered the standard for arsenic from 50 to 10 ppb in public water supplies (effective in 2006). Churchill County, Nevada, has approximately 25,000 residents. Slightly more than half (13,500) rely on private domestic wells for water supply. Ample data and media publicity about high arsenic concentrations in water supplies and a federally led investigation of a leukaemia cluster suggested that residents of the county would be aware that arsenic concentrations in private wells were highly likely to exceed the 10 ppb standard. A survey carried out in 2002 showed that a majority of respondents (72%) consumed water from private wells and among them a minority (38%) applied treatment. Maximum, median and minimum concentrations of arsenic from all samples (n = 351) were 2,100, 26 and <3 ppb, respectively. Seventy-four per cent of all samples exceeded 10 ppb. A majority (87%) of those who applied treatment consumed tap water. The relatively low rate of application of treatment suggested that these rural residents did not recognize that consumption could have associated health risks. However, those who applied treatment were ∼0.3 times as likely to be consuming water with > 10 ppb arsenic than those who consumed water that was not treated. In areas where concentrations of arsenic have been demonstrated to be high, it may be important to conduct a focused educational effort for private well owners to ensure that they take the steps needed to assess and reduce risks associated with contaminants found in tap water, including arsenic. An educational effort could include promoting sampling efforts to determine the magnitude of arsenic concentrations, explaining the risk associated with arsenic consumption and providing information about choices for home treatment systems that are likely to be effective in removing arsenic. This may be especially important in rural areas where adverse health effects are not evident to local populations.

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Resilience of the Alsatian aquifer, France to climate and anthropogenic change: A case study of the Grand Ried

10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-1178 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Agnès Labarchède ◽

Carmen de Jong ◽

Élodie Giuglaris ◽

Serge Dumont

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Drinking Water ◽

Water Supply ◽

River Discharge ◽

Water Levels ◽

Temperate Climate ◽

Groundwater Levels ◽

Water Abstraction ◽

Water Withdrawals ◽

Upper Rhine

<p>The vulnerability of the Alsatian aquifer to climate change and water abstraction has hardly been investigated whilst climate change impacts such as decreasing snowfall, droughts and heat waves are becoming stronger and water abstraction for irrigation is seasonally intensifying as a result. Despite being influenced by a European temperate climate, seasonal drying up of groundwater-fed streams has been recently observed in the region of the Grand Ried of the Middle Alsatian Plain and drought decrees in Alsace have intensified. The Alsatian aquifer, an alluvial aquifer located on the French side of the Upper Rhine, belongs to one of the largest aquifers in Europe. It not only provides drinking water to approximately 1.5 million inhabitants but is also a highly important water supply for industry and agriculture. This study aims to improve our understanding of the interactions between groundwater levels of the Alsatian aquifer and river discharge during drought periods. Lying within the Upper Rhine Graben, this complex basin is flanked by the Vosges and Black Forest mountains to the West and East respectively. As such, the aquifer is influenced by both the River Rhine, its main tributaries and the Vosges mountains. At present, it is difficult to differentiate climate and anthropogenic signals in groundwater level lowering during the summer. In this study, spatial and temporal correlations of river discharge and groundwater levels were analysed based on meteorological and hydrological data available since 1955 from national and regional agencies and will form the base for hydrogeological modelling in the next phase. High resolution field data enables to capture complex interactions and for this purpose an intensive interdisciplinary field study was carried out in the summer. Water levels of 7 groundwater-fed streams, including 3 springs, were recorded automatically at hourly time steps and accompanied by manual measurements of temperature, dissolved oxygen and turbidity as well as biological observations. Streams show subdaily water level variations mainly due to evapotranspiration and water withdrawals for irrigation. Even though irrigation represents on average only 18.5% of annual groundwater abstraction in the Alsace region over a territory that is 50% agricultural, water withdrawals are concentrated over a few months in summer and their impacts are visible. Climate change has decreased snow storage and snow water equivalent as well as increased periods without precipitation and thereby increased evapotranspiration over the last decades. The challenge is to determine whether irrigation effects are stronger than evapotranspiration which would imply that water abstraction impact could outweigh that of climate change during summer droughts. Because they can affect the sustainability of drinking water supply, biodiversity and economic activities, awareness on droughts impacts and water abstraction should be increased.</p>

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Increase in VTEC cases in the south of Ireland: link to private wells?

Eurosurveillance ◽

10.2807/ese.13.39.18991-en ◽

2008 ◽

Vol 13 (39) ◽

Author(s):

M B O’Sullivan ◽

P Garvey ◽

M O’Riordan ◽

H Coughlan ◽

P McKeown ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Escherichia Coli ◽

Drinking Water ◽

Water Supply ◽

Drinking Water Supply ◽

The South ◽

Republic Of Ireland ◽

Equivalent Time ◽

Time Period ◽

The Republic ◽

Private Wells

High levels of verotoxigenic Escherichia coli (VTEC) have been recorded to date in 2008 in the Republic of Ireland. One hundred and forty-eight VTEC cases were notified up to the end of August 2008 (Figure 1), compared to 70-90 confirmed cases reported in the equivalent time period in 2006 and 2007. Thirty three percent of cases notified in Ireland in 2008 indicated that their usual drinking water supply was a private well.

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