skip to main content
Explore Scholarly Publications and Datasets in the NSF-PAR

  • NSF Public Access
  • Search Results
  • Accepted Manuscript: Transformations to Groundwater Sustainability: From Individuals and Pumps to Communities and Aquifers
Title: Transformations to Groundwater Sustainability: From Individuals and Pumps to Communities and Aquifers
If the success of agricultural intensification continues to rely on the depletion of aquifers and exploitation of (female) labour, transformations to groundwater sustainability will be impossible to achieve. Hence, the development of new groundwater imaginaries, based on alternative ways of organizing society-water relations is highly important. This paper argues that a comparative documentation of grass-roots initiatives to care for, share or recharge aquifers in places with acute resource pressures provides an important source of inspiration. Using a grounded anti-colonial and feminist approach, we combine an ethnographic documentation of groundwater practices with hydrogeological and engineering insights to enunciate, normatively assess and jointly learn from the knowledges, technologies and institutions that characterize such initiatives. Doing this usefully shifts the focus of planned efforts to regulate and govern groundwater away from government efforts to control individual pumping behaviours, to the identification of possibilities to anchor transformations to sustainability in collective action.
Authors:
; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; more » ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; « less
Editors:
Fisher, E.; Boyd, E.; Brondizio, E.
Award ID(s):
1912361
Publication Date:
NSF-PAR ID:
10316625
Journal Name:
Current opinion in environmental sustainability
Volume:
49
ISSN:
1877-3435
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
More Like this
  1. ; ; ; ( , Sustainability)
    Transformational change is not always intentional. However, deliberate transformations are imperative to achieve the sustainable visions that future generations deserve. Small, unintentional tweaks will not be enough to overcome persistent and emergent urban challenges. Recent scholarship on sustainability transformations has evolved considerably, but there is no consensus on what qualifies transformational change. We describe variations in current discussions of intentional sustainability transformations in the literature and synthesize strategies from funding institutions’ recent requests for proposals for urban sustainability transformations. Research funding initiatives calling for transformational change are increasingly common and are an important driver of how transformational change is articulatedmore »in research-practice in cities. From this synthesis, we present seven criteria for transformational change that provide direction for framing and implementing transformational change initiatives.« less
  2. ; ; ; ( , Frontiers in Water)
    This study identifies hydrogeologic characteristics of complex aquifers based on constructing stratigraphic structure with large, non-uniform well log data. The approach was validated through a modeling study of the irrigation-intensive Chicot aquifer system, which is an important Pleistocene-Holocene aquifer of the Coastal Lowlands aquifer system in the southwestern Louisiana. Various well log types were unified into the same data structure, prioritized based on data sources, and interpolated to generate a detailed stratigraphic structure. More than 29,000 well logs were integrated to construct a stratigraphy model of 56 model layers for the Chicot aquifer system. The stratigraphy model revealed interconnections ofmore »various sands in the system, where 90% of the model domain is covered by fine-grained sediments. Although the groundwater model estimated a slight groundwater storage gain during 2005–2014 for the entire region, groundwater storage in the agricultural area was depleted. Nevertheless, the quick groundwater storage recovery during the non-irrigation seasons suggests that the Chicot aquifer system is a prolific aquifer system. The groundwater modeling result shows that the gulfward groundwater flow direction prior to pumping has been reversed toward inland pumping areas. The large upward vertical flow from the deeper sands indicates potential saltwater migration from the base of the Chicot aquifer system.« less
  3. ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ( , Hydrology)
    The Southern Ocean receives limited liquid surface water input from the Antarctic continent. It has been speculated, however, that significant liquid water may flow from beneath the Antarctic Ice Sheet, and that this subglacial flow carries that water along with dissolved nutrients to the coast. The delivery of solutes, particularly limiting nutrients like bioavailable iron, to the Southern Ocean may contribute to ecosystem processes including primary productivity. Using a helicopter-borne time domain electromagnetic survey along the coastal margins of the McMurdo Dry Valleys region of Southern Victoria Land, Antarctica, we detected subsurface connections between inland lakes, aquifers, and subglacial waters.more »These waters, which appear as electrically conductive anomalies, are saline and may contain high concentrations of biologically important ions, including iron and silica. Local hydraulic gradients may drive these waters to the coast, where we postulate they emerge as submarine groundwater discharge. This high latitude groundwater system, imaged regionally in the McMurdo Dry Valleys, may be representative of a broader system of Antarctic submarine groundwater discharge that fertilizes the Southern Ocean. In total, it has the potential to deliver tens of gigagrams of bioavailable Fe and Si to the coastal zone.« less
  4. ; ; ( , Geosciences)
    As much as 3.05 m of land subsidence was observed in 1979 in the Houston-Galveston region as a result primarily of inelastic compaction of aquitards in the Chicot and Evangeline aquifers between 1937 and 1979. The preconsolidation pressure heads for aquitards within these two aquifers were continuously updated in response to lowering groundwater levels, which in turn was caused by continuously increasing groundwater withdrawal rates from 0.57 to 4.28 million m3/day. This land subsidence occurred without any management of changes in groundwater levels. However, the management of recovering groundwater levels from 1979 to 2000 successfully decreased inelastic compaction from aboutmore »40 mm/yr in the early 1980s to zero around 2000 through decreasing groundwater withdrawal rates from 4.3 to 3.0 million m3/day. The inelastic consolidation that had existed for about 63 years roughly from 1937 to 2000 caused a land subsidence hazard in this region. Some rebounding of the land surface was achieved from groundwater level recovering management. It is found in this paper that subsidence of 0.08 to 8.49 mm/yr owing to a pseudo-constant secondary consolidation rate emerged or tended to emerge at 13 borehole extensometer station locations while the groundwater levels in the two aquifers were being managed. It is considered to remain stable in trend since 2000. The subsidence due to the secondary consolidation is beyond the control of any groundwater level change management schemes because it is caused by geo-historical overburden pressure on the two aquifers. The compaction measurements collected from the 13 extensometers since 1971 not only successfully corroborate the need for groundwater level change management in controlling land subsidence but also yield the first empirical findings of the occurrence of secondary consolidation subsidence in the Quaternary and Tertiary aquifer systems in the Houston-Galveston region.« less
  5. ; ; ; ; ( , Cities and the environment)
    Cities are increasingly making decisions related to sustainability, and information from the field of urban ecology may be useful in informing these decisions. However, the potential utility of this information may not translate into it actually being used. We surveyed municipal sustainability staff through the Minnesota GreenStep Cities program documenting their information needs and information sources, and used these results to identify the frequency with which urban ecologists are publishing studies of potential relevance to practitioners. We also quantified funded awards from the U.S. National Science Foundation in urban ecology that explicitly describe active partnerships with city policy makers. Ourmore »results show that urban ecologists are increasingly generating information of potential relevance to city sustainability efforts, with rapid increases in the number of articles published and grants funded on areas identified as key information needs. Our results also suggest that the transmission of information from academic urban ecologists to practitioners occurs mostly through indirect pathways, as municipal sustainability staff reported relying heavily on general web searches and government agency websites to find information. We found evidence of an increasing frequency of active collaborations between urban ecologists and policy makers from NSF grant abstracts. Our findings are consistent with previous findings that traditional models of passive communication to practitioners through academic journals results in a low efficiency of use of this knowledge, but that the potential for urban ecologists to help inform municipal sustainability initiatives through active collaborations with practitioners is great.« less
  • Citation Formats
  • MLA
  • APA
  • Chicago
  • BibTeX
  • Save / Share this Record
  • Send to Email