New scientific initiative to better understand aquifers and threats. this karst projectIt is coordinated by the Institute for Environmental Diagnostics and Water Research (IDAEA), affiliated to the Supreme Council for Scientific Research (CSIC), 10 million euros in funding from the European Research Council (European Research Council, ERC) its purpose is to study the physical laws that govern the world. water flow and pollutant transport. Karst is one of 29 projects selected from the nearly 360 proposals submitted in this first call.
Groundwater pollution occurs when pollutants are released into the soil or subsoil and then migrate to the aquifer. This can also occur naturally due to the presence of mineral components present in high concentrations in the aquifer.
“Up to 25% of the world’s population depends on underground caves for their water supply.. In addition, there is extremely rapid water transport inside these caves, which can cause overflow and contamination of other freshwater systems,” explains Marco Dentz, CSIC researcher and Karst coordinator at IDAEA.
The project will not only enable the assessment of the impact of extreme events such as droughts and floods, which are expected to occur more frequently due to climate change, but will also provide more information on the origin of these underground formations.
ERC Synergy financing with a total value of 295 million Euros, helps small groups of two to four researchers develop ambitious projects could not be addressed individually by the researchers and their teams.
“Some problems are too complex to be tackled alone.. These new grants allow scientists to join forces and collaborate across disciplinary boundaries. Mariya Gabriel, Europe’s Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth, was created to gain insights to help us understand the world around us and tackle future challenges.
In the case of Karst, the multidisciplinary team included researchers Marco Dentz of IDAEA-CSIC, who specializes in the transport of pollutants in heterogeneous environments; Philippe Renard of the University of Neuchâtel (Switzerland), expert on caves and beds; Benoit Noetinger of IFP Energies Nouvelles (France), expert on heterogeneous media and flows in oil reservoirs; and Bojan Mohar, a mathematician specializing in network theory from the University of Ljubljana (Slovenia).
groundwater pollution
Poor groundwater quality can be caused by: natural causes or human activities. Generally speaking, when speaking of pollution, we will refer to an industrial discharge, for example.
In most cases, it is not easy to distinguish whether the cause is natural or anthropic, because non-polluting human activity (pumping in general) changes the previous balance, causing the quality of groundwater to deteriorate. There is The large differences between pollution of surface water and pollution of groundwater make the latter more serious.
Contamination in surface waters is immediately noticeable, so possible corrective action can be taken immediately. Months or even years may have passed when a problem is detected in groundwater. The waters of a river are replenished with the rate of flow so that the source of pollution is eliminated and the quality of the water returns to normal in a short time.
In aquifers, it takes a long time to regenerate because their flow is very slow and their volume is very large. the problem remains because of all the water it contains several times and even then, the substances adsorbed in the aquifer.
Artificial decontamination of aquifers is very costly and is normally only applicable to shallow and not very wide aquifers. Drought and overuse of aquifers is one of the main problems of strategic groundwater bodies in Spain.
Irrigation for agriculture is the largest consumer of water in Spain: 80% of this resource is potable The growth of our basins and, according to official data, its surface has not stopped in recent years.
It is estimated that irrigated crops in Spain consume 100 times more water than the city of Madrid’s more than 3 million residents require in a year.. In areas where there is no water in rivers and reservoirs, groundwater is used and jeopardizes the water reserves of the future. As a result, according to the Hydrological Plans, 25% of the aquifers have been severely overexploited. It is also estimated that there are more than half a million illegal wells in Spain, according to WWW-Adena.
……
Environment department contact address:[email protected]