Lecture on groundwater recharge in the climate change context at IWRA Conference

Billions of people depend on the availability of groundwater for their daily drinking water supply. In view of climate change and the correlating droughts and floods, this necessity will be further aggravated. Groundwater recharge, i.e. the amount of water infiltrating through the soil into the groundwater, is a central indicator for groundwater availability.

Dr. Robert Reinecke presented new results of his study “Changes of groundwater recharge at different global warming levels: A global-scale multi-model ensemble approach” at the IWRA Conference on the issue “Addressing Groundwater Resilience under Climate Change” on 29 October. The talk was attended by about 250 listeners. For the very first time, it shows global changes in groundwater recharge under various global warming scenarios for the entire planet. The study is still in the review process.

The results show major uncertainties in the modelling of groundwater recharge processes and the necessity to improve mapping of these processes in global hydrological models.