This paper highlights three key points. First, access to groundwater will continue to allow intensification of agricultural production in response changing patterns of demand. Second, the scope for managing agricultural demand for groundwater is limited, particularly where rural communities are trying to escape from poverty. Third, the overexploitation of aquifers by agriculture is forcing users into economic and social transitions (moving off the land or transferring resources or user rights to competing users, e.g. municipal and industrial users). The net consequences will be:
A loss of some strategic aquifers.
An enhancement of agricultural productivity in relation to overall water use and uptake of conjunctive use.
A marked transfer of groundwater from agriculture to other competing users.
Substitution of groundwater by imports or alternative sources.
The expansion of irrigated agriculture in the twentieth century has decoupled the water user from the inherent risk of exploiting annually renewable water resources. The apparent reliability of storage and conveyance infrastructure and the relative cheapness and flexibility of groundwater exploitation offered by mechanized drilling and pumping have allowed groundwater irrigation to take up opportunities in the continuum between rainfed and full control irrigation. This has sheltered the end user and society as a whole from the risk of crop failure due to natural hydrological variability. The imperative for in-field irrigation efficiency has been partially removed. This is because the physical and economic management of the resource is often determined by command area authorities or, in the case of groundwater pumping, by the performance of power utilities, which have no direct interest in water resource conservation. As a result, the resource base has been degraded, and irreparable damage has occurred in some cases. It is argued that the rigidity of water resource management in many irrigation systems is not attuned to the inherent variability of the natural systems upon which they depend. Furthermore, irrigation management systems can work in a more balanced way by spreading risk equitably and transparently amongst the resource regulators, managers and users. However, this requires a more flexible approach to natural resource management, one that is conditioned not only by natural parameters, but also by the socio-economic settings.
Groundwater will continue to be used intensively and some expansion of irrigated agriculture can be expected to develop new groundwater sources, particularly as markets for agricultural produce change. This will happen in parallel with land going out of irrigated production as a consequence of physical depletion, migration of low-quality water, economic depletion (where pumping costs become excessive), waterlogging and salinization, and groundwater transfers out of agriculture (e.g. in the western United States of America).
These changes will be incremental. Hence, the scenario proposed by Brown (1998) is unlikely to occur. However, there is potential for widespread drought to occur in conjunction with groundwater declines. If the impacts of intensive use are incremental, so too is recovery, but only if systems can be relaxed. However, with over 100 years of development in the Ogallala aquifer, a collective agreement to comanage a common property aquifer only managed to attenuate the rate of decline, not reverse it (White and Kromm, 1995). In this sense, effecting agricultural and social transition, of which water management is a part, may provide more scope for relieving pressure on key aquifers rather than relying on water management alone.
The results of this overview suggest two broad avenues for future work. The first avenue involves the development of a detailed research programme to gather groundwater data directly from governments and other sources within key countries in order to develop an improved picture of groundwater use and conditions. This type of picture is a prerequisite for developing: (i) more informed assessments of the implications of groundwater conditions for food security; and (ii) scientifically founded courses of action for managing the resource base. The second avenue focuses on the development of adaptive responses to water problems and policy approaches that reflect and respond to uncertainty, change and the absence of real understanding of systems and their interactions. Inherent limitations in the nature of scientific information in conjunction with the dynamic process of social and institutional change occurring in many parts of the world make this second avenue at least as important as the first.
In addition to these two broad areas, the analysis suggests a variety of key points of leverage for technical assistance organizations to assist in developing effective responses to emerging groundwater problems. These points of leverage are listed below in a particular sequence for specific reasons. Effective responses to emerging groundwater problems are essential. However, this paper argues that the viability of traditional integrated management approaches is limited by a wide array of data, technical, social and political factors. As a result, society needs to proceed on two equally important courses.
An interagency working group on groundwater management would allow the UN agencies concerned to focus efforts along these two courses and develop mutually reinforcing normative and operational programmes.
FAO, the IAEA, UNESCO and the UNDESA have contributed to this initiative, but the group needs to include agencies with a declared comparative advantage in groundwater science, information and management. The WHO can provide specific direction on groundwater pathogens/remediation, the World Bank on investment in groundwater and the Regional Commissions on specific regional perspectives.
Such an interagency group could be responsible for collating the UN-agency thinking (including that of their official partners in the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research and with international NGOs) and contributions in the areas outlined below.
The need to rethink the approach to groundwater management is a theme that runs throughout much of this paper. Standard management approaches depend heavily on the presence of basic data and on institutional capacities for regulation, scientific research, etc, that are absent in many countries. Because such capacities and data often require decades to develop, alternative approaches are essential in order to address the types of problems now emerging in many regions. Furthermore, this research suggests that strategies that build off existing trends within society or help populations to adapt may be as effective as strategies that attempt to manage the groundwater resource base directly. Further research to clarify existing coping mechanisms and to identify or test the viability of adaptive strategies could represent a major starting point for an initiative to 'rethink groundwater'. The development of criteria suggesting where traditional forms of groundwater management may or may not be possible is also a key area for work. This could be of critical importance to governments and other actors seeking to identify locations where different approaches are likely to prove viable.
Basic research on groundwater is fundamental to any attempt to manage groundwater or respond to the problems now emerging in many areas. For example, in India, seasonal water-level fluctuations (whether natural or related to extraction) may have implications for water access that are at least as important as the presence or absence of 'overdraft' conditions. Large-magnitude fluctuations may be particularly important in hard-rock regions where storage is low. There has been relatively little research on groundwater availability in hard-rock regions because they typically form poor aquifers. However, they do represent a major source of water for farmers in locations such as India. Therefore, better understanding of groundwater dynamics in hard-rock areas is important.
In addition to specific environments, it is important to conduct further research to identify techniques for the rapid and accurate evaluation of water-balance components under developing-country conditions. In many regions, even order-of-magnitude estimates for extraction, recharge, evapotranspiration, etc. are unavailable. Research that would help to 'tighten' and improve water-balance models with the types of data available in developing countries is important. Ultimately, such research may be able to move models away from the current uncertainties.
Beyond groundwater per se, further research focused on the changing social context in with overdraft problems are emerging appears important. Understanding the implications of groundwater overdraft for food security and livelihood sustainability requires detailed understanding of the way in which rural agricultural societies are evolving and of the coping strategies rural populations have developed to deal with water scarcity. Whether or not people are actually able to shift livelihoods away from agriculture into other equally or more productive strategies is of fundamental importance to understanding the impact that overdraft may have on them. This type of research is essential to determine whether or not 'adaptive' strategies can meet the dual objectives of improving livelihoods while increasing the sustainability of basic groundwater resources. It is also essential in order to identify points of leverage where governments or other organizations could assist rural populations to adapt to emerging water problems.
Many governments and other actors attach a low priority to collecting basic data on resource conditions. However, such long-term data covering all key elements of the hydrological cycle including groundwater fluctuations and water-level trends are essential as a basis for management and for evaluating the implications of changes in use. In addition, models based on such data can play a central role as 'negotiating texts' where conflicts over resources or their management emerge within society. In the absence of such data, the parties have little basis for reaching agreement on the actual nature of groundwater systems. As a result, debates over management have little hope of reaching closure. Because data provide the foundation for social agreements regarding how aquifer systems work or the actual amount of water available, they can serve as a key tool of conflict resolution. Therefore, continued support for basic data collection and groundwater evaluation is justified on both scientific and social process grounds.
Data access is probably the single most important factor determining the ability of social auditors (e.g. NGOs and other civil society actors) to press governments and society as a whole to address emerging problems and their social or environmental impacts. As a result, activities that support data dissemination remain a key point for action. However, while comprehensive initiatives such as the FAO Aquastat database (accessible at: (http://www.fao.org/ag/AGL/aglw/Aquastatweb/Main/html/aquastat.htm) provide a national breakdown of groundwater-dependent irrigation, attempts to refine this breakdown will encounter the data problems demonstrated in this report. Therefore, continued support for the dissemination of national groundwater data for groundwater users, where available, would seem a more appropriate direction to take.
Together with the need to rethink groundwater and identify new strategies to address emerging problems, continued efforts to implement integrated groundwater management using more standard regulatory and economic approaches are equally important in locations where such approaches appear viable. Because standard management approaches tend to require substantial technical support and often involve politically or economically difficult decisions, success may depend on focusing management initiatives in areas of particular strategic importance. For example, aquifers that serve as the primary source of freshwater supply for urban areas or support critical environmental values may represent strategic locations on which to focus management efforts. In most countries, such aquifers represent a small fraction of total groundwater use. They are also likely to involve uses where it is relatively easy to generate broad consensus within society regarding the importance of management and aquifer protection. As a result, approaches that focus management on such strategic locations are more likely to be successful than efforts to manage groundwater throughout broad regions.
Adaptive strategies are of equal importance and complementary to more standard groundwater management approaches. In many cases, they can provide the breathing space necessary to develop the institutions and information essential for more focused management. Thus, it is important to continue to lay the foundations for direct groundwater management even where it may not produce results in the short to intermediate term. Therefore, continued FAO support for basic groundwater data collection, the development of legal frameworks to enable management and the development of supporting organizations is important.
A final key point of leverage for UN-system agencies lies in the global perspective they can bring to groundwater based on actual national data sets. Governments and communities in many parts of the world are trying different approaches to groundwater monitoring, analysis and management. Harvesting and disseminating the lessons from these initiatives could serve as a catalyst for the development of approaches that are effective even in the most difficult locations. As a result, activities that support the harvesting and dissemination of instances of adaptive groundwater management (simply to show what happens) will continue to be an important activity for UN agencies involved in groundwater management. The actual experience of groundwater management, or the lack of it, needs to be charted if real responses are to be effective.
Target studies could include case studies of:
groundwater management failure;
specific socio-economic impacts resulting from overabstraction and pollution;
intense competition among water users (private and public);
intersectoral competition between irrigated agriculture and urban water supplies;
competition between communities located at recharge and discharge areas of aquifer systems;
competition over transboundary aquifers (exploitation and pollution).
The main objective of the World Water Assessment Programme (WWAP) is to develop the tools and skills needed to achieve a better understanding of the basic processes, management practices and policies that will help improve the supply and quality of global freshwater resources. Thematic advocacy and guideline documents concerning rethinking and improving groundwater management, planned in the framework of a joint UN Agency Programme, should support the WWAP. In particular, its objective "identifies water management strategies and policies which work well and those which are unsatisfactory and analyses the reasons for success and failure" is closely related to planned activities of UN Agency Programmes. The Interagency Working Group could prepare a timetable and working plan for cooperation on the World Water Development Report, which is one of primary activities of the WWAP. The development of the methodological framework of groundwater resources indicators and indices to monitor water-related social and environmental performance (and their testing on target case studies) is a time-consuming process. The cooperation of the Interagency Working Group will be very useful. At the ACC/SWR meeting in Tokyo (April 2001), UNESCO was given the coordinating role for the development of groundwater resources indicators.
