Groundwater Management Working Group

Shaminder Puri

Co-Chair of the Groundwater Management Working Group

Shaminder Puri has served two terms as Secretary General of the International Association of Hydrogeologists. Currently he is Chair of the IAH Commission on Transboundary Aquifers. His scientific, technical & policy experience on groundwater resource management comes from over four decades of work. His scope of practical experience derives from a range of responsibilities, such as the world’s largest water well drilling programme in the transboundary Rum-Saq Aquifer (2011-2012), restructuring of the coal sector in Ukraine and as global co coordinator of the Internationally Shared Aquifer Resources Management Programme (ISARM,) under which, an atlas of 273 transboundary aquifers was published. He was also one of the prime technical contributors to the UN International Law Commission’s Draft Articles on the Law of Transboundary Aquifers, adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2013. He has held senior advisory position with UNEP, UNESCO, the EU’s EuropeAid programmes and the Asian Development Bank. His recent assignments include establishing AMCOW’s African Groundwater Commission and advising the Governments of Lesotho and Swaziland on their transboundary water resources management. He is a Trustee of the Hurst Water Meadows, a unique local community based trust, aimed at ensuring landscape & aquatic bio diversity at the very local scale.

Water Future Is Important To Me Because…

Participating in the Water Future Programme will enable me to promote the kind of science, engineering, governance and management in groundwater resources, that will drive policy change in the hydrogeological arena.

Karen Villholth

Co-Chair of the Groundwater Management Working Group

Karen G. Villholth has more than 25 years of experience in groundwater resources assessment and management. She deals with research, policy advice, and capacity development related to groundwater irrigation for smallholders, transboundary aquifers, groundwater resources and recharge assessment, climate change impact assessment on groundwater resources, adaptation through underground solutions, role of depleting aquifers in global food production, groundwater and eco-system services, and groundwater management and governance for institutions at various levels, from local to global. She engages with multidisciplinary teams and stakeholders in co-developing tools, approaches, and policies to a more sustainable use of groundwater for livelihoods, food security, and environmental integrity.

Karen is a Principal Researcher and a Sub-Theme Leader, working with IWMI, International Water Management Institute, from the Southern Africa regional office in Pretoria, South Africa. She is leading the global IWMI-led partnership initiative on Groundwater Solutions for Policy and Practice (GRIPP) that aims to enhance attention to and improvement in groundwater management in countries heavily reliant on groundwater for irrigation and food production.

Karen holds a PhD in Groundwater Assessment and a MSc in Chemical Engineering from the Technical University of Denmark and a MSc in Civil Engineering from the University of Washington, USA. She previously worked for DHI-Water and Environment and the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland. She is co-Manager on two Commissions within IAH, the International Association of Hydrogeologists: the one on Groundwater for Decision Makers and the one on Governance of Transboundary Aquifers.

Water Future Is Important To Me Because …

Further information will be provided in due course.

Anne Biewald

Co-Chair of the Ground Water Management Working Group and Member of the SDG Assessment Core Group

Anne Biewald is Deputy Professor for Agricultural, Food and Environmental Policy at the Justus-Liebig- University Giessen and Senior Researcher at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. She has successfully led several coordinated research activities and has won the renowned young researcher’s award of the state of Brandenburg on her work on virtual water trade. Her research interests lie in the complex inter-linkages between global trade, policies at different scales, poverty and sustainable ground water use.

Water Future Is Important To Me Because…

Water Future, as a global research platform, gives me the opportunity to connect with international researchers, covering all aspects of ground water research, irrespective of the national limits set by funding bodies.

Ted I.E. Veldkamp

Member of the Groundwater Management Working Group and Member of the Economic Instruments of Water Security Working Group

Ted Veldkamp is an inter-disciplinary researcher at the Water and Climate Risk department of the VU University in Amsterdam. Her research focus is on the modelling and assessment of fresh water resources and their extremes, including flooding, droughts, and water scarcity events. She has evaluated past and future trends in extreme events, their underlying driving anthropogenic and hydro-climatic forces, and their impacts on society. Using risk assessment methods and economic evaluation techniques, Ted Veldkamp works on the evaluation and optimization of adaptation portfolios in order to optimize water resource use in space and time, and alleviate the adverse effects of extreme hydrologic events.

Water Future Is Important To Me Because…

It offers an unique opportunity to work with a group of international researchers with various backgrounds on emerging water related problems.

Kevin Hiscock

Member of the Groundwater Management Working Group

Professor Kevin Hiscock is from the School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia, UK.

Water Future Is Important To Me Because…

More information will be forthcoming in due course.

Nicholas Brozović

Member of the Groundwater Management Working Group

Nicholas Brozovic is Director of Policy at the Water for Food Global Institute at the University of Nebraska. He works to ensure that the Institute’s programs inform water management policies and decision makers. Brozovic has over fifteen years of experience in water policy worldwide. His interests include designing and evaluating incentive-based water management policies and enhancing the role of entrepreneurism in water decision making. He has a PhD in agricultural and resource economics from the University of California-Berkeley.

Water Future Is Important To Me Because…

Interdisciplinary, international collaborations like Water Future are ciritical to making progress on key problems in water and food security.

Manuel Pulido-Velazquez

Member of the Groundwater Management Working Group

Manuel Pulido-Velazquez has a Bachelor in Civil Engineering (Univ. Granada, Spain), an MSc from Univ. California at Davis (2001) and PhD from UPV  (2003), Associate Professor at UPV and Vicedirector of IIAMA, with about 100 researchers (40 PhDs) and Spain’s leading academic institute for the interdisciplinary study of water resources. Director of GVA’s Climate Change chair at UPV. Main research focus on development of methods and tools for integrated management of water resource systems combining hydrology, engineering, economics, participatory approaches and system analysis. Has published extensively on hydroeconomic modelling (including 2014 Best Policy-Oriented Paper by ASCE). Member of the Environmental & Water Resources Systems Committee of ASCE and associate editor for Water Resources Research (AGU) and J. Water Resources Planning and Management (ASCE).

Water Future Is Important To Me Because…

I think this is a great, much-needed initiative for developing a collaborative global water platform leading to science-based sustainable solutions for water management.

Petra Döll

Member of the Groundwater Management Working Group

A geologist and groundwater modeller by training, Petra Döll received her PhD in soil water modelling in 1996. Working at the Center for Environmental Systems Research (1996-2003), she  co-developed the global water resources and use model known as ‘WaterGAP’ (a regional water use model), as well as methods for generating qualitative-quantitative scenarios. Development of ‘WaterGAP’ has continued since 2003 at the Goethe University in Frankfurt, focusing on groundwater, irrigation, ecologically-relevant streamflow alterations and climate change impacts. Another research focus is the investigation of participatory methods for identifying sustainable management strategies. Petra Döll was a lead author of IPCC’s Fourth and Fifth Assessment Reports.

Water Future Is Important To Me Because…

Water Future’s mission to support the quest for solutions to the world’s water problems fits to both of my research foci. It requires knowledge on how to achieve participatory / transdisciplinary knowledge integration as well as improved knowledge about the water situation world-wide

Tom Gleeson

Member of the Groundwater Management Working Group

Tom is a hydrogeologist interested in groundwater sustainability, regional- to continental-scale groundwater systems, groundwater-surface water interactions and fluid flow around geologic structures. He addresses these varied research interests by integrating disciplines that are not often combined: field methods, numerical modelling, environmental chemistry, structural geology, GIS and policy studies. He loves new ideas and experiences, food and yoga, and helping people and the world. He was recently awarded the AGU Early Career Hydrologic Science Award and leads the AGU/EGU blog waterunderground.

Water Future Is Important To Me Because…

I am excited to interact with an interdisciplinary group focused on a sustainable ‘water world’.

Junguo Liu

Member of the Groundwater Management Working Group

Junguo Liu’s main research interests include hydrology and water resources, ecosystem services and management, coupled ecological and social systems, and water-food-energy nexus. He is author of over 80 peer-reviewed papers, including articles in Science, Nature and PNAS, which have been cited over 2,000 times. Junguo Liu serves as an editor of the Journal of Water and Climate Change, and is one of seven target leaders of the Decade Program 2013-2022 of the International Association of Hydrologic Sciences (IAHS). He has research experience in China, Austria, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Germany, the U.K., and the U.S., amongst others.

Water Future Is Important To Me Because…

Water related problems need collaboration among scientists from all over the world for a sustainable future.

Jeroen Aerts

Member of the Groundwater Management Working Group

Jeroen Aerts is a  Professor Water and Risk, Director of the Institute for Environmental Studies, Amsterdam Global Change Institute, VU Amsterdam, Netherlands

Water Future Is Important To Me Because…

Further information will be available in due course.

Cezar Ionescu

Member of the Groundwater Management Working Group

Cezar Ionescu  is an Associate Professor of data science, University of Oxford

Water Future Is Important To Me Because…

Further information will be available in due course.

Ioanna Mouratiadou

Member of the Groundwater Management Working Group

Ioanna Mouratiadou is a  Senior Researcher, Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development, Utrecht University, Netherlands

Water Future Is Important To Me Because…

Further information will be available in due course.

Yoshihide Wada

Member of the SDG Assessment Core Group; Member of the Freshwater Biodiversity Working Group; and Member of the Groundwater Management Working Group

Dr. Yoshihide Wada is a Senior Research Scholar and Deputy Director of IIASA’s Water (WAT) Program. Dr. Wada obtained his PhD degree with distinction (Cum Laude) at Utrecht University in October, 2013. His work also includes estimating and projecting global water scarcity, and assessing the sustainability of global groundwater resources. His current research projects include a hlobal assessment of the sustainability of future food production under socioeconomic and climate change, and water scarcity. He has participated in the IPCC AR5 report (Working Group I).  Dr. Wada has co-authored about 100 publications, 60 of which appeared in international peer-reviewed journals.

Water Future Is Important To Me Because…

Cross-sectoral collaborations on global groundwater issues and developing the management options.

Dieter Gerten

Member of the SDG Assessment Core Group and Member of the Groundwater Management Working Group

Diploma in Geography (University of Trier, 1996); PhD in Freshwater Ecology (University of Potsdam and Institute for Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries, Berlin, 2001); Postdoc scientist and research group leader at PIK (since 2001); habilitation at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (2013) and lecturer in the Geography Dept. (since 2009); author of >80 peer-reviewed papers and 20 books / book chapters.

Water Future Is Important To Me Because…

Water Future assembles researchers across disciplines and scales: an essential activity in view of the ever-increasing pressure on planet Earth and its global water system.