1st Edition

Groundwater Management Practices

Edited By Angelos N. Findikakis, Kuniaki Sato Copyright 2011

    Groundwater is an indispensable resource in many parts of the world, where it supports domestic water supply, irrigated agriculture and industry. Its increased, and often intensive, use during the last half century has created problems and raised concerns regarding the potential depletion of local aquifers, water quality degradation and various geologic hazards such as land subsidence and sinkholes. This volume includes contributions by experts from several countries who describe different groundwater management practices in their part of the world and discuss measures and actions in response to the challenges associated with the sustainability of groundwater use and the protection of the groundwater environment, as well as the evolution of legal and institutional framework needed for their implementation. It discusses past and present practices and various aspects of the regulatory and legal framework of groundwater management in Japan, China, India, Iran, Australia, the United States, Spain, Denmark, Switzerland and the European Union, and reviews recent efforts to improve the management of transboundary aquifer resources.

    Highlights and common themes of groundwater management practices around the world
    Angelos N. Findikakis

    Groundwater resources management in Japan
    Kenji Jinno and Kuniaki Sato

    Groundwater management for sustainable water resources utilization in China
    Bingchen Wang, Xilai Zheng, and Guoqing Lin

    Groundwater issues and management in the North China Plain
    Yangwen Jia

    Groundwater management practices and emerging challenges: lessons from a case study in the Karnataka State of South India
    Sekhar Mudda, Yusuf Javeed, Soumaya Bandyopadhyay, Sylvian Mangiarotti, and Pierre Mazzega

    Groundwater management in Kandi region of Jammu Province, Jammu and Kashmir, India
    Vikas Sharma and Uttam C. Sharma

    Sustainable water resource management in the foothills of the Siwaliks, Northwest India
    Sanjay Arora

    Role of groundwater in the Tehran water supply
    Hamid R. Jahani

    Groundwater in Spain: legal framework and management issues
    Jorge Molinero, Emilio Custodio, Andrés Sahuquillo, and Manuel R. Llamas

    Groundwater management in Denmark – protection of natural resources
    Anders Refsgaard and Susanne Vangsgaard

    Management issues for the Edwards Aquifer, Texas, USA
    Randy J. Charbeneau and Charles W. Kreitler

    Economic benefits of expanded groundwater storage in the Central and West Coast basins of Southern Los Angeles County
    David L. Sunding, Stephen F. Hamilton, Newsha K. Ajami

    Sustainable management of groundwater resources in parts of arid South Australia
    Ian F. Clark and Lynn A. Brake

    Groundwater quality management practices
    Eduard Hoehn

    Protection of groundwater environments
    Fritz Stauffer

    Impacts of below-ground structures on the groundwater environment and their management
    Kuniaki Sato and Takayuki Ueno

    Geological hazards due to groundwater pumping and/or artificial recharge
    Jiang Li and Zuping Sheng

    Groundwater-related laws in Japan
    Kuniaki Sato, Katsuhiko Shichinohe, and Takayuki Ueno

    Groundwater-related laws, regulations and standards in China 
    Bingchen Wang, Xilai Zheng, and Guoqing Lin

    The EU groundwater regulatory framework
    Philippe Quevauviller, Johannes Grath, Andreas Scheidleder, and Balazs Horvath

    Groundwater legal framework and management practices in the High Plains aquifer, USA
    Marios Sophocleous

    UNESCO inventory of transboundary aquifers: managing shared groundwater resources wisely
    Alice Aureli

    Biography

    Kuniaki Sato, Angelos N. Findikakis