The Groundwater Project Foreword
The UN-Water Summit on Groundwater, held on 7-8 December 2022, at the UNESCO Headquarters in Paris, France, concluded with a call for Government and other stakeholders to scale up efforts to better manage groundwater. The intent of the call to action was to inform relevant discussions at the UN 2023 Water Conference that was held on 22-24 March 2023 at UN Headquarters in New York City. One of the required actions is strengthening human and institutional capacity, to which groundwater education is fundamental.
The 2024 World Water Day theme is ‘Water for Peace’, which focuses on the critical role water plays in the stability and prosperity of the world. The UN Water website states that more than 3 billion people worldwide depend on water that crosses national borders. There are 592 transboundary aquifers; yet most of these aquifers do not have an intergovernmental cooperation agreement in place for sharing and managing the aquifer. While groundwater plays a key role in global stability and prosperity, it also makes up 99% of all liquid freshwater, so it is at the heart of the freshwater crisis. Groundwater is an invaluable resource.
The Groundwater Project (GW‑Project) is a registered Canadian charity founded in 2018, committed to the advancement of groundwater education as a means to accelerate action related to our essential groundwater resources. We are committed to making groundwater understandable and, with that, enable building the human capacity for sustainable development and management of groundwater. To that end, the GW-Project creates and publishes high‑quality books about all-things-groundwater, for all who want to learn about groundwater. Our books are unique in that they synthesize knowledge, are rigorously peer reviewed, are translated in many languages, and are free of charge. An important tenet of GW‑Project books is a strong emphasis on visualization with clear illustrations to stimulate spatial and critical thinking. The GW-Project started publishing books in August 2020, and, by the end of 2023 had published 44 original books and 58 translations. The books are available at gw-project.org↗.
The GW-Project embodies a new type of global educational endeavor made possible through the contributions of a dedicated international group of volunteer professionals from diverse disciplines. Academics, practitioners, and retirees contribute by writing and/or reviewing books aimed at diverse levels of readers including children, teenagers, undergraduate and graduate students, as well as professionals in groundwater fields and the general public. More than 1,000 dedicated volunteers from 70 countries and six continents are involved—and participation is growing. Revised editions of the books are published from time to time. Readers are invited to propose revisions.
We thank our sponsors for their ongoing financial support. Please consider donating to the GW-Project so we can continue the publication of books free of charge.
The GW-Project Board of Directors, January 2024