IAPG-Afghanistan organizes a webinar on groundwater to celebrate the UN World Water Day 2022
17 March 2022
14:00-16:00 (Kabul time/GMT+4:30)
From IAPG-Afghanistan:
Under the auspices of IAPG (International Association for Promoting Geoethics) and IAH (International Association of Hydrogeologists), the IAPG-Afghanistan (Afghanistan section of the IAPG) joined with AIH-GP (Portuguese Chapter of the IAH), The Groundwater Project, and AWEP.Net (Afghanistan Water and Environment Professionals Network) to celebrate the United Nations-World Water Day 2022 with a Seminar dedicated to "Making Groundwater visible in Afghanistan".
Among the speakers: Manuel Abrunhosa (IAPG Board of Experts) and Sebastian Handl (Board of the IAPG-ECST Early Career Scientists Team). Moderators: Mohammad Salem Hussaini and Asadullah Farahmand (Co-coordinators of IAPG-Afghanistan).
The webinar is open for online attendance of people from academia, research institutions, private and public sectors, and all interested in the theme.
To attend is necessary a registration before 16 March through the following link:
For the first time, the UN World Water Day is dedicated to groundwater. In doing this, UN-Water called for worldwide awareness and action by proposing as theme “Making the invisible, visible”, an apparently strange stance.
In fact, groundwater is, by its nature, not visible as other water resources are, being found hidden underground in the aquifers. These are geological formations that contains water that enters there by several ways. To cite some, there is rain and snow melt, river and water channels infiltration, floods, irrigation surpluses, losses from mains in water supply or sewage systems, infiltrating water spills with surface pollutants, water transfer from other aquifers, and from managed infiltration ponds, all in general called recharge. Once there, it is hold as groundwater in a vast network of voids and tiny pores in the rocks and sediments. That water is kept always moving impelled by gravity and hydraulic pressure. It physically and chemically reacts along the path with the mineral and the microbiome media and may degrade or increase in pollutants. Accordingly, it changes the composition of its solutes during underground circulation, usually at small velocities and long distances, in near horizontal paths. Groundwater always ends reaching an exit from his aquifer, even if sometimes it is invisible. That can be a transfer to another aquifer, to the land surface, to a water body, as rivers, lakes, wetlands, the sea, also the biota, the atmosphere and, each day more and more, to millions and millions of artificial extraction spots (wells mainly) for human benefit.
All along his path groundwater moves invisible underground, sometimes unaccounted by who needs water, sometimes exploited by people that reasons incorrectly that the groundwater in his well is a resource of his own plot of land, not shared by his neighbor, and his neighbor neighbor’s, also thinking that groundwater is infinite, until the well goes dry, a situation that shouldn’t occur if the resource is professionally managed with support of sound science and engineering.
This lack is basic knowledge about groundwater by lay people and some educated population outside the limited “groundwater people”, the Hydrogeologists, the Hydrologists, and some other technicians, exists worldwide irrespective of region and state of development.
To avoid an announced tragedy of water depletion and contamination, there is an urgent need for education in responsible citizenship for ethical actions, including the basic concepts about the Water Cycle and the Groundwater Cycle in curricula from elementary school to higher education courses. This is a worldwide groundwater project represented in this Seminar.
Hydrogeologists and Hydrologists for a long time ago feel a need to keep and develop control of all these mechanisms and its many variables, because they know that groundwater, as the natural water resource that corresponds globally to almost 99% of all liquid freshwater on the planet plays a vital role for the society and nature, not only at local level but also worldwide, interacting with all other “waters”, with climate, with society health and of the ecosystems, food production, energy.
To act among this complex science, technology and management actions that connects with the most basic human needs, enough good and dedicated professionals are needed in stable technical organizations at the public administration level, having the necessary education and means to do their jobs. Universities and science funding institutions must dedicate curricula and support research to groundwater issues and international cooperation. Professionals, academics, and researchers are responsible persons that know what to do, but they are still few in some countries, and need to be invested to have a voice (a magic?) to make the invisible, visible. This is the role of independent Scientific and Professional associations, as are those that bring this Seminar to you.
Until now, the principle of “far from sight, far from the heart” ruled in what concerns groundwater. We, conscient professionals are aware that the result of this denial reaches soon a dramatic threshold, unfortunately already met by some populations and regions, mainly in disadvantaged countries in already water-scarce areas by its nature and aggravated by climate change.
This explains the invisible characters of groundwater that the UN, and many organizations recognized, considers a duty to invert, for worldwide benefit in responsibility towards people and nature, to reach peace, sustainability, and sound development, with the basic aim of water for all.
Afghanistan shares this general situation with all the world. Hydrogeology in Afghanistan is in its infancy and should be encouraged and recognized as a tool for peace and development.
The most prolific aquifer systems in Afghanistan are within Quaternary and Neogene-Age alluvial deposits of major rivers and intermontane valleys. The groundwater geochemistry for most of the alluvial ground-water basins are dominated by the sodium bicarbonate with some magnesium bicarbonate. A further in-depth knowledge about these aspects and many others needs sustained and continued research, development, and innovation.
Climate change and some anthropogenic activities such as overuse of groundwater resources for drinking, commercial, agricultural purposes, land use and land cover changes, urban development and population growth and accumulation in urban centers have reduced the quantity and the quality of groundwater throughout the country. Groundwater is used for all purposes in the big cities of the country, and for this reason, the big cities face a serious water problem that connects with sanitation.
In the rural areas groundwater is its main use and is expected to increase. Its conjunctive use with surface water and with more efficient irrigation, may contribute to a better protection of groundwater, surface water, and the rural economy and wellbeing of populations.
This webinar is a contribution, a first step, to make groundwater in Afghanistan from invisible, visible. Other steps will follow.
We count on you.
This event in the World Water Day 2022 website:
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Other events in the IAPG calendar:
IAPG - International Association for Promoting Geoethics:
https://www.geoethics.org
https://www.geoethics.org
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