Groundwater management under global change: Sustaining biodiversity, energy and food supplies

This chapter grapples with the challenge of simultaneously sustaining biodiversity, energy and food supplies in conjunction with efforts to mitigate and adapt to climate change. Managing groundwater supplies sustainably is critical to that challenge, and the chapter assesses the positive synergies and perverse impacts for sustaining groundwater resources from both climate change mitigation and adaptation policies. The chapter finds that the pressures on groundwater resources will likely increase in the future, with the location, scale and magnitude of groundwater use shifting in response to other pressures. For example, changing energy policies are resulting in rapid deployment of thirsty technologies. Similarly, climate change adaption will increasingly rely on the water storage capacity of aquifers, yet many adaptation measures may also increase groundwater use. For better groundwater management under global change pressures we recommend a focus on complementary measures to: integrate information, deploy appropriate new technologies, apply market-based incentives and improve cross-sectoral governance. The key challenge for proponents of sustaining groundwater resources is to engage stakeholders and decisionmakers outside the water sector in governance institutions.