Global Groundwater: Source, Scarcity, Sustainability, Security, and Solutions

Prof. Abhijit Mukherjee received his PhD degree from the University of Kentucky, United States and is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Texas at Austin, United States. He has served as the physical hydrogeologist at the Alberta Geological Survey in Canada and is currently a professor at the Department of Geology and Geophysics, and the School of Environmental Science and Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, India. Prof. Mukherjee’s main research area is hydrogeology, including water pollution, scarcity, and governance. He is known globally for his studies on geological and human-sourced groundwater pollution and has done extensive work on delineating groundwater scarcity using field observations, advanced computation, and Artificial Intelligence techniques. He has received many distinctions, including the highest award in Indian science. He is a fellow of the Geological Society of America, the American Geophysical Union, and the Royal Society of Chemistry. He has editorial roles in the Journal of Hydrology, Applied Geochemistry, Journal of Earth System Sciences, Scientific Reports, ES&T Letters, ES&T Engineering, and Water Resources Research. He is the editor of several books, including Groundwater of South Asia and Global Groundwater: Source, Scarcity, Security, Sustainability and Solutions.

Bridget Scanlon has a PhD from the University of Kentucky, and is presently Fisher Endowed Chair in Geological Sciences and a Senior Research Scientist at the Bureau of Economic Geology, Jackson School of Geosciences, the University of Texas at Austin. As a world-leading authority on water research, her career has been characterized by a commitment to data as well as innovative approaches that cut across disciplines. During her ~40 years academic career, Bridget has published articles in numerous peer-reviewed journals, and has been involved with U.S. Department of Energy scientific endeavors, and has been a member of the NASA GRACE satellite Science team. In 2016, she was elected as a member of the National Academy of Engineering, one of the highest U.S. scientific professional honors and also the National Ground Water Association’s M. King Hubbert Award. Bridget is widely considered as one of the foremost authorities on global groundwater resources and besides being an Associate Editor of several subject journals, she is the former Managing Editor of Journal of Hydrology.

Alice Aureli has a PhD in Hydrogeology and has worked in the UNESCO Water Sciences Division since 1989. She is the Chief of the Groundwater Resources and Aquifer Systems Section of UNESCO’s International Hydrological Programme. She is responsible for, amongst others, the International Shared Aquifers Resources Management (ISARM) programme. This role has led her to supervise the work of the interdisciplinary group that advised the UN International Law Commission to prepare the Draft Articles on the Law of Transboundary Aquifers. An important aspect of her work has been on scientific and policy-related issues surrounding groundwater governance. Alice is the author of a large number of publications and has also served as editor of various international journals.

Simon Langan received his PhD from University of St. Andrews, UK, followed by a post-doctoral fellowship atImperial College, London, UK. He was the Director of IIASA’s Water Program and the Water Futures and Solutions Initiative. Throughout his career, Simon has won grants and secured funding from regional and international donor projects, including from the private sector, the EU 7th Framework, Natural Environment Research Council, National Power, Scottish Environment Protection Agency, USAID, and Canadian Government. Simon has an extensive number of publications in peer-reviewed journals, as well as experience in policy-related analyses, including numerous peer-reviewed articles, technical reports, books/chapters and conference proceedings.

Huaming Guo has a PhD from the China University of Geosciences: Wuhan, Hubei, China, followed by a Postodoctoral Fellowship at Tsinghua University: Beijing, Beijing, China. He has also been an Alexander van Humboldt Research Fellow at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany. He is currently a Professor at the School of Water Resources and Environment, China University of Geosciences, Beijing, China. He has been also a Senior Visiting Professor to Columbia University, USA. Huaming has over 20 years of teaching and research experience. He has been Associate Editor of several journals and presently servesas Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Hydrology.

Andrew McKenzie has a B.A (Hons.) from Oxford University and M.Sc. from University College London in Hydrogeology. He worked as an exploration geologist and hydrogeologist in Africa, the Middle East and the UK before joining the BGS in 1988, working on groundwater issues, in Central America. As a hydrogeologist in BGS’s Groundwater Directorate he has been responsible for managing the survey’s databases on groundwater, focussing on field data collection, data processing and developing systems to disseminate data to stakeholders. This includes contributing to the NERC systems for monitoring groundwater status, investigating drought and floods, and, more recently, developing forecasts of groundwater resources at a national level. He has extensive international experience principally in Africa and South Asia, where he was Senior Hydrogeologist for the World Bank India Hydrology Project, and co-investigator on research projects in the Ganga and Cauvery basins. He is currently Platform Lead for the BGS ODA Project ‘Sustainable Asian Cities’ which is building networks for urban geoscience across several Asian countries. Andrew has over 35 years of research experience. He is a Fellow of Geological Society of London.