posted on 2018-08-29, 11:06authored byPaul D. Hynds, Shane Regan, Luisa Andrade, Simon Mooney, KEVIN O'MALLEYKEVIN O'MALLEY, Stephanie DiPelino, Jean O'Dwyer
The trouble with groundwater is that despite its critical importance to global water supplies,
it frequently attracts insufficient management attention relative to more visible surface water sources,
irrespective of regional climate, socioeconomic profile, and regulatory environment. To this end, the
recently defined sub-discipline of “socio-hydrogeology”, an extension of socio-hydrology, seeks to
translate and exchange knowledge with and between non-expert end-users, in addition to involving
non-expert opinion and experience in hydrogeological investigations, thus emphasising a “bottom-up”
methodology. It is widely acknowledged that issues pertaining to groundwater quality, groundwater
quantity, climate change, and a poor general awareness and understanding of groundwater occurrence
and movement are global in their scope. Moreover, while effective communication and engagement
represent the key tenet of socio-hydrogeology, the authors consider that multiple actors should be
identified and incorporated using stakeholder network analysis and may include policymakers, media
and communications experts, mobile technology developers, and social scientists, to appropriately
convey demographically focused bi-directional information, with the hydrogeological community
representing the communication keystone. Accordingly, this article aims to highlight past and current
work, elucidate key areas of development within socio-hydrogeology, and offer recommendations to
ensure global efficacy of this increasingly important and growing field going forward. The authors
seek to assist in protecting our global groundwater resource for future generations via an improved
framework for understanding the interaction between communities and hydrogeological systems.