Scientists from the Christian Albrecht University in Kiel, The Geological Survey of Finland, the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland and the SME “Evologics” developing underwater drones (AUV’s) for underwater surveys and monitoring presented today research on submarine groundwater discharge (SGD) in Germany, Finland and Denmark. The importance of SGD and their effects on the ecological status of coastal ecosystems is not very well known and need to be closely investigated in order to assess SGD impacts and improve the Scientific basis for policy development and protection of coastal ecosystems – e.g. By establishing groundwater threshold values as required by the Groundwater Directive / Water Framework Directive. The BONUS SEAMOUNT project collaborates closely with the Horizon 2020 programme GeoERA on the development of a SGD Information Platform within the European Geological Data Infrastructure. The photos show Joonas Virtasalo of the Geological Survey of Finland presenting results of their SGD study south of the Hanko peninsula in southern Finland.

Groundwater researchers, Master and PhD students from globally leading environmental tracer laboratories and research institutes in Switzerland (Univ. Bern), Germany (Univ. Heidelberg, Univ. Bremen), the Netherlands (TNO),  Denmark (GEUS) and Italy (Univ. Sapienza, Rome) met this week in the city of Odense, Denmark, in order to collect water samples for estimation of groundwater age distributions in water supply wells of VCS Denmark of which many are contaminated by pesticides. The work is part of the HOVER project within the GeoERA program of the European geological surveys, which is co-funded by the EU, European geological surveys and Innovation Fund Denmark. The sampling program included collection of samples for the analysis of the following important tracers: 85Kr, 39Ar, 37Ar, 3H/3He, 4He, 14C, d13C, 18O, 2H, SF6, CFCs and noble gases. In addition some wells were sampled for the analysis of pesticides and emerging contaminants. The research institutes benefited from the efficient and skilled support of groundwater specialists and technicians of VCS Denmark, which ensured efficient collection of 11 samples from 9 different water supply wells for water analyses to be conducted at five research laboratories and one commercial laboratory. All samples were collected in just 2.5 working day .

Today is the last day of the IAEA International Symposium on Isotope Hydrology – as usual it had a very interesting program about the use of isotopes in hydrology e.g. On groundwater dating in both young polluted groundwater and groundwater with ages up to a million years. The GeoERA project leaders of HOVER (Laurence Gourcy) and RESOURCE (Hans Peter Broers) both presented results of isotope studies. Hans Peter Broers presented work of the Dutch Geological Survey, TNO about the use of 3H/3He dating in Young contaminated groundwater in the Netherlands. Work which is continued in the GeoERA project. Laurence Gourcy about the use of isotopes in groundwater studies in the upper Volta area in Africa. We furthermore had a meeting with leading groundwater dating labs. and colleagues from Univ Bern, Univ Heidelberg and USGS about an upcoming common groundwater sampling campaign in Danish water supply wells medio June. I’m confident that we will get a lot of new exciding and important data from this study, which will be used for assessment of groundwater vulnerability towards pollution from the surface and included in the GeoERA Information Platform / EGDI in the Future. Hopefully, we can present the results at the next IAEA symposium on isotope hydrology.

The activities of the EuroGeoSurveys’ Water Resources Expert Group (WREG) including GeoERA groundwater were presented 2.5.2019 at the UNECE resource management week in the UN Palais de Nations in Geneva – see the brief presentation here: https://www.slideshare.net/KlausHinsby/activities-of-the-water-resources-expert-group-wreg?from_m_app=ios

In addition we have contributed to establishing a new global working group on groundwater and groundwater classification within the UNFC similar to the existing WG classifications on minerals and energy etc. The new working group on groundwater is chaired by Prof. Marco Petitta from univ. Sapienza in Rome representing the European Federation of Geologists, who was also leading the KINDRA project on classification of European groundwater research and the development of the European Inventory of Groundwater Research EIGR

GeoERA and related activities were presented in two talks today at the EOS5.2 session on geoethics at EGU 2019 – you can find a pdf of my ppt at this link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/uyje5fy0gem5di0/EGU2019-16740_GeoERA_Hinsby%20et%20al_v0.pdf?dl=0

The TACTIC (Tools for assessment of climate change impacts on groundwater and adaptation strategies) – project in the GeoERA programme https://geoera.eu/projects/tactic was presented today 3.4.2019 at the 36th Working Group Groundwater meeting in Bucharest, Romania. The meeting was hosted by the Romanian Presidency of the Council of the European Union at the impressive Palace of Parliament in Bucharest – the worlds second largest administrative building.

Hydrogeologists from European geological surveys currently meet at the Hungarian Geological Survey (MBFSZ) and museum in Budapest to develop a common European map of groundwater resources in the RESOURCE project of the GeoERA program

Today is the International Geoethics Day.

You can read more about this important initiative on the website: http://www.geoethics.org and in a special issue of Annals of Geophysics: http://www.geoethics.org/geoethics-ag2017

Here you can also read a paper: https://www.annalsofgeophysics.eu/index.php/annals/article/download/7500/6869 – how geoethics are important concepts of the GeoERA program on sustainable use of subsurface resources

http://geoera.eu