skip to main content
US FlagAn official website of the United States government
dot gov icon
Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.
https lock icon
Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( lock ) or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Explore Research Products in the PAR
It may take a few hours for recently added research products to appear in PAR search results.


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.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
1912361
PAR ID:
10316625
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; more » ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; « less
Editor(s):
Fisher, E.; Boyd, E.; Brondizio, E.
Date Published:
Journal Name:
Current opinion in environmental sustainability
Volume:
49
ISSN:
1877-3435
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
More Like this
  1. ; ; ; ; ; (, Groundwater)
    Abstract Aquifers supporting irrigated agriculture are a resource of global importance. Many of these systems, however, are experiencing significant pumping‐induced stress that threatens their continued viability as a water source for irrigation. Reductions in pumping are often the only option to extend the lifespans of these aquifers and the agricultural production they support. The impact of reductions depends on a quantity known as “net inflow” or “capture.” We use data from a network of wells in the western Kansas portions of the High Plains aquifer in the central United States to demonstrate the importance of net inflow, how it can be estimated in the field, how it might vary in response to pumping reductions, and why use of “net inflow” may be preferred over “capture” in certain contexts. Net inflow has remained approximately constant over much of western Kansas for at least the last 15 to 25 years, thereby allowing it to serve as a target for sustainability efforts. The percent pumping reduction required to reach net inflow (i.e., stabilize water levels for the near term [years to a few decades]) can vary greatly over this region, which has important implications for groundwater management. However, the reduction does appear practically achievable (less than 30%) in many areas. The field‐determined net inflow can play an important role in calibration of regional groundwater models; failure to reproduce its magnitude and temporal variations should prompt further calibration. Although net inflow is a universally applicable concept, the reliability of field estimates is greatest in seasonally pumped aquifers. 
    more » « less
  2. ; ; ; (, 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 articulated 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. 
    more » « less
  3. ; ; ; (, Proceedings of the International Conference on Computational Fluid Dynamics)
    The solution of partial differential equations (PDEs) on modern high performance computing (HPC) platforms is essential to the continued success of groundwater flow and transport modeling in Pacific islands where complex regional groundwater flow is governed by highly heterogeneous volcanic rocks and dynamic interaction between freshwater and seawater. For accurate simulations of complex groundwater flow processes in the Hawaiian islands, the PISALE (Pacific Island Structured-AMR with ALE) software has been developed to offer an innovative combination of advanced mathematical techniques such as arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian method (ALE) and Adaptive Mesh Refinement (AMR). The software uses parallel programming models to accelerate the time to solution and dynamically adapt the grids using AMR. This allows for the solution of equations that can reproduce the sharp freshwater-seawater interface in large-scale coast aquifers. In this work, we summarize our ongoing efforts to create a publicly available sustainable branch of the software focused on the groundwater problem. The island-scale numerical groundwater flow modeling will play an important role in predicting the sustainable yields and potential contaminant transport for the volcanic aquifer systems and planning groundwater resources management. 
    more » « less
  4. ; ; ; (, JAWRA Journal of the American Water Resources Association)
    Abstract The Mississippi Embayment aquifer is one of the largest alluvial groundwater aquifers in the United States. It is being excessively used, located along the lower Mississippi River covering approximately 202,019 km2(78,000 square miles). Annual average groundwater depletion in the aquifer has been estimated at 5.18 billion cubic meters (Gm3) (4.2 million acre‐feet) in 1981–2000. However, since 2000, annual groundwater depletion has increased abruptly to 8 Gm3(2001–2008). In recent years, multi‐state efforts have been initiated to improve the Mississippi Embayment aquifer sustainability. One management strategy of interest for preserving groundwater resources is managed aquifer recharge (MAR). In this study, we evaluate the impact of different MAR scenarios on land and water use decisions and the overall groundwater system using an economic model able to assess profitability of crop and land use decisions coupled to the Mississippi Embayment Regional Aquifer Study (MERAS) hydrogeologic model. We run the coupled model for 60 years by considering the hydrologic conditions from the MERAS model for the years 2002–2007 and repeating them 10 times. We find MAR is not economically attractive when the water cost is greater than $0.05/m3. Groundwater storage is unlikely to improve when relying solely on MAR as groundwater management strategy but rather should be implemented jointly with other groundwater conservation policies. 
    more » « less
  5. ; ; ; ; ; (, Science Education)
    Abstract There is a pressing need to improve the sustainability of educational improvement efforts, but sustainability remains undertheorized in science education. In this article, we draw upon frameworks from organizational culture and sustainability to characterize change within a single undergraduate science department. This in‐depth longitudinal case study over 15 years provides careful documentation of the types of changes that are required to make improvements over time. In particular, we argue that cultural shifts are an important aspect of sustainable improvements. As we show, even a department that was considered an educational improvement “success story” was unable to sustain the improvements made through its initial effort. Nonetheless, we do argue that the initial effort resulted in shifts to multiple aspects of the department's culture (e.g., ways of thinking, the status of education in the department), that we characterize with Bolman and Deal's four frames. These cultural shifts provided the groundwork for a later effort, to ultimately create sustainable structures in the department resulting in sustained improvement. To conclude, we provide recommendations for how to improve the sustainability of change efforts and describe important methodological considerations for future studies of sustainability. 
    more » « less
  • Citation Formats
  • MLA
  • APA
  • Chicago
  • BibTeX
  • Save / Share this Record
  • Send to Email