Global Groundwater Modeling and Monitoring: Opportunities and Challenges

Groundwater is by far the largest unfrozen freshwater resource on the planet. It plays a critical role as the bottom of the hydrologic cycle, redistributing water in the subsurface and supporting plants and surface water bodies. However, groundwater has historically been excluded or greatly simplifi...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	Water resources research Vol. 57; no. 12
Main Authors:	Condon, Laura E., Kollet, Stefan, Bierkens, Marc F. P., Fogg, Graham E., Maxwell, Reed M., Hill, Mary C., Fransen, Harrie‐Jan Hendricks, Verhoef, Anne, Van Loon, Anne F., Sulis, Mauro, Abesser, Corinna
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	English
Published:	Washington John Wiley & Sons, Inc 01-12-2021
Subjects:	Freshwater Freshwater resources global Groundwater Groundwater models Hydrologic cycle Hydrological cycle Hydrology Inland water environment modeling Modelling Monitoring Surface water Surface-groundwater relations Water bodies Water monitoring
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Summary:	Groundwater is by far the largest unfrozen freshwater resource on the planet. It plays a critical role as the bottom of the hydrologic cycle, redistributing water in the subsurface and supporting plants and surface water bodies. However, groundwater has historically been excluded or greatly simplified in global models. In recent years, there has been an international push to develop global scale groundwater modeling and analysis. This progress has provided some critical first steps. Still, much additional work will be needed to achieve a consistent global groundwater framework that interacts seamlessly with observational datasets and other earth system and global circulation models. Here we outline a vision for a global groundwater platform for groundwater monitoring and prediction and identify the key technological and data challenges that are currently limiting progress. Any global platform of this type must be interdisciplinary and cannot be achieved by the groundwater modeling community in isolation. Therefore, we also provide a high‐level overview of the groundwater system, approaches to groundwater modeling and the current state of global groundwater representations, such that readers of all backgrounds can engage in this challenge. Plain Language Summary Groundwater is an important part of the water cycle but we are still working on the best ways to include it in global models. This study provides an overview of the state of the science for groundwater modeling and outlines a road map for what is needed to improve global groundwater models. Key Points A global groundwater framework is needed to address critical gaps in our understanding and predictive capacity of the hydrologic cycle We envision a framework that will combine observations and models to provide spatially and temporally continuous groundwater information The proposed framework could improve predictability in existing models and provide valuable new information for water management
ISSN:	0043-1397 1944-7973
DOI:	10.1029/2020WR029500