The Groundwater Project Foreword
The United Nations (UN)‑Water Summit on Groundwater, held from 7 to 8 December 2022, at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris, France, concluded with a call for governments and other stakeholders to scale up their efforts to better manage groundwater. The intent of the call to action was to inform relevant discussions at the UN 2023 Water Conference held from 22 to 24 March 2023 at the UN headquarters in New York City. One of the required actions is strengthening human and institutional capacity, for which groundwater education is fundamental.
The UN‑Water website↗ states that more than three billion people worldwide depend on water that crosses national borders. There are 592 transboundary aquifers, yet most do not have an intergovernmental cooperation agreement in place for sharing and managing the aquifer. Moreover, while groundwater plays a key role in global stability and prosperity, it also makes up 99 percent of all liquid freshwater—accordingly, groundwater is at the heart of the freshwater crisis. Groundwater is an invaluable resource.
The Groundwater Project (GW‑Project), a registered Canadian charity with its beginnings in 2018, pioneers in advancing understanding of groundwater and, thus, enables building the human capacity for the development and management of groundwater. The GW-Project is not government funded and relies on donations from individuals, organizations, and companies. The GW‑Project creates and publishes high‑quality books about all‑things‑groundwater that are scientifically significant and/or relevant to societal and ecological needs. Our books synthesize knowledge, are rigorously peer reviewed and translated into many languages. Groundwater is ‘hidden’ and, therefore, our books have a strong emphasis on visualizations essential to support the spatial thinking and conceptualization in space and time of processes, problems, and solutions. Based on our philosophy that high quality groundwater knowledge should be accessible to everyone, The GW-Project provides all publications for free.
The GW-Project embodies a new type of global educational endeavor made possible by the contributions of a dedicated international group of over 1000 volunteer professionals from a broad range of disciplines, and from 70 countries on six continents. Academics, practitioners, and retirees contribute by writing and/or reviewing books aimed at diverse levels of readers including children, youth, undergraduate and graduate students, groundwater professionals, and the general public.
The GW‑Project started publishing books in August 2020; by the end of 2024, we have published 55 original books and 77 translations (55 languages). Revised editions of the books are published from time to time. In 2024, interactive groundwater education tools and groundwater videos were added to our website, gw‑project.org↗.
We thank our individual and corporate sponsors for their ongoing financial support. Please consider sponsoring the GW‑Project so we can continue to publish books free of charge.
The Groundwater Project Board of Directors, January 2025