Sustainable water resources management under water-scarce and limited-data conditions

Urbanization and population growth increase the demand for freshwater abstraction, food production, rising thus the agricultural, economic, and productivity expectations. The need for improved water services, sustainable and resilient management under changing climate, are major drivers to set forth the redesigning of water planning. Water scarcity combined with the limited expansion of new infrastructure create competition among water uses and further stress the satisfactory coverage of the increasing needs. Integrated modeling is a way to simulate and address the above challenges, however, poor monitoring, incomplete databases, and complexity make its applications difficult. Questions such as what data to use, how to best exploit the (limited) available databases, what parameters to calculate, and how to satisfy both economic and environmental objectives, occur. This study presents a novel Decision Support System (DSS), combining hydrology, economics, engineering, and social aspects, aimed to participatory management, using simple concepts, and discussing assumptions for working with limited data, and useful parameters to estimate. Water availability and demand, water quality, profits, costs, and management scenario analysis, including nature-based solutions, are explored under climate change scenarios, and alternative policies are evaluated. The combination of the above and the useful modeling insights, under water- and data-scarcity conditions are novel elements, while the aim is to encourage integrated and sustainable water resources management through understandable and user-friendly DSSs.

Toward sustainable water resources management: critical assessment on the implementation of integrated water resources management and water–energy–food nexus in Afghanistan

Afghanistan has abundant water resources; however, the current state of affairs is dismal because of the lack of integrated water resources management (IWRM) practices and prolonged war and conflict in the country. Therefore, there is a need for a systematic approach to water management, which can be materialized by integrating IWRM and the water–energy–food (WEF) nexus approach to maintain a critical balance of available water resources and their various uses at the national level. This study provides a comprehensive assessment of Afghanistan's water resource management, including the current state, challenges, opportunities, and way forward. The identified challenges are categorized as social and environmental issues, engineering and technical and regulatory, policy and government role. These challenges are inter-connected and a novel framework toward the implementation of IWRM and the WEF nexus in Afghanistan is proposed. This framework can be used by the relevant stakeholders to prepare a roadmap for sustainable management of water resources. Such integrative approaches will enhance Afghanistan's water, food, and energy security and significantly contribute to its economic development. Moving forward, the Afghanistan government must play a crucial role with regards to the efficient management of the country's water resources in an integrated manner as suggested in this paper.

Climate change and groundwater resources availability in the Great Limpopo National Park (Mozambique): the current state of knowledge

This work outlines a comprehensive study of groundwater resources supply in Mozambique’s Great Limpopo National Park buffer zone in Southern Africa. To protect biological diversity and the water resources supply of dispersed communities of the buffer zone is a crucial problem to fix people in the region and, in the meantime, to boost the development of the Limpopo National Park. This work shows the current state of knowledge about this topic and try to point out some suggestions on technical solutions. Some previous studies concluded that two different main factors make a complex water supply in this area: (i) the rainwater distribution, it is hard to transform the rainwater into groundwater resources available for exploitation, and (ii) the common groundwater resources, rich in elements such as Boron (B), Mercury (Hg), Uranium (U), Zinc (Zn) and Lead (Pb). The occurrence of these elements is linked to the presence of groundwater with long residence times, unsafe for people’s health. The methodological approach adopted has been to assess the potential infiltration, applying the inverse hydrogeological budget technique, starting from the main outcropping geological units, in the study area. Due to the lack of meteorological data referred to Limpopo National Park, the gauge stations located in the Kruger National Park during the last 64 years have been, on the whole, considered. The target of the study has been to assess the trend of meteorological data and understand how precipitations could affect groundwater recharge and their availability. Without a strategy of biodiversity conservation and sustainable water resources management, they cannot be reached and guaranteed healthy conditions for local dispersed communities. A hydrogeoethical responsible approach is essential to protect biological diversity and hydrosocial cycle framework with integrative ecosystem services and nature-based solutions.

Age and origin of groundwater resources in the Ararat Valley, Armenia: a baseline study applying hydrogeochemistry and environmental tracers

Within the Ararat Valley (Armenia), a continuously growing water demand (for irrigation and fish farming) and a simultaneous decline in groundwater recharge (due to climate change) result in increasing stress on the local groundwater resources. This detrimental development is reflected by groundwater-level drops and an associated reduction of the area with artesian conditions in the valley centre. This situation calls for increasing efforts aimed at more sustainable water resources management. The aim of this baseline study was the collection of data that allows for study on the origin and age distribution of the Ararat Valley groundwater based on environmental tracers, namely stable (δ2H, δ18O) and radioactive (35S, 3H) isotopes, as well as physical-chemical indicators. The results show that the Ararat Valley receives modern recharge, despite its (semi-)arid climate. While subannual groundwater residence times could be disproved (35S), the detected 3H pattern suggests groundwater ages of several decades, with the oldest waters being recharged around 60 years ago. The differing groundwater ages are reflected by varying scatter of stable isotope and hydrochemical signatures. The presence of young groundwater (i.e., younger that the 1970s), some containing nitrate, indicates groundwater vulnerability and underscores the importance of increased efforts to achieve sustainable management of this natural resource. Since stable isotope signatures indicate the recharge areas to be located in the mountains surrounding the valley, these efforts must not be limited to the central part of the valley where most of the abstraction wells are located.

Machine Learning with Metaheuristic Algorithms for Sustainable Water Resources Management

Management of available water resources needs good planning and to do this, prognostication of hydrological parameters (parameters of the hydrological cycle such as rainfall, runoff, solar radiation, groundwater, evaporation/evapotranspiration) [...]