On March 9, 2022 we had the first talk of the II Making Groundwater Visible Event! The event started off with great success, with 1269 subscribers on the event, 1620 subscribers on the YouTube channel and over 1212 views on the talks until now. It could not have been different, as it has a team of excellent speakers!
At the Grand Opening & GW-Project Presentation we had the presence of Dr. John Cherry and Dr. Everton de Oliveira, who gave an overview of the Groundwater Project and future expectations, then the “Photobook: Making Groundwater Visible” talk with Dr. John Cherry, Dr. Everton de Oliveira and Dr. Aurélien Dumont brought a little of the Groundwater Project and prospects for the future, Photobook: Making Groundwater Visible and World Water Day 2022 – Groundwater Making the invisible, visible.
According to Dr. John Cherry “the idea of the coffee table book is a brilliant one because groundwater doesn’t mean anything to anybody outside of the field and we groundwater people. All know that when we attempt to talk about groundwater with people outside of our circle we’re viewed as being odd or boring because we’ve got pictures alive in our head and we can’t translate them so that people understand” and Dr. Everton de Oliveira completed by saying that “groundwater provides more than a third of the global drinking water and supports half of the food production. So, we’re putting a book together to make groundwater visible [Photobook Making Groundwater Visible]. Don’t miss the opportunity to make the world a better place!”.
To finish Dr. Aurélien brought up an excellent line when he mentions “to reveal to a wide audience the hidden nature of groundwater by showing its impact across the world, showing that these groundwater stories really play a role in the daily life of the people. This is something that is also needed to a little bit raise more awareness and open the eyes of an interest of different public and audience”.
Without a doubt, it was a very interesting talk. If you missed it live, you can still watch the recorded version here: https://youtu.be/4U07t4aH3UY
On March 11 the speakers Frencisco Matos, Carlos Souza Jr. and Raoni Rajão presented the How to stop draining the continents? Francisco highlighted the importance of the Greater Amazon Aquifer System by saying “the GAAS [Greater Amazon Aquifer System] is simply a reservoir of 162 thousand cubic kilometers of water and it is also four times the Guarani Aquifer. The GAAS is responsible for four fifths of the waters that are in the Amazon, representing 81% of the waters of the Amazon hydrological cycle”. Carlos brought in his speech recent results of an impactful survey “the water surface in the Amazon is shrinking! Wetlands in the Amazon are drying out in the summer. […] In 30 years, 3.1 million hectares of surface water were lost in Brazil, this is equivalent to 15.7%, and of course this has a huge impact on groundwater.”
Dr. Raoni Rajão made a great participation bringing relevant subjects to Brazil and that happens in different parts of the world: “You have the idea that the Brazilian product is always associated with environmental destruction, even the production that does not directly deforest, which is the majority, additionally you also have trouble accessing markets. Due to deforestation, which is closely associated with agriculture, there has been a change in the rainfall pattern over time. […] All this has a negative effect on society, there is a privatization of profits and socialization of losses!”
You can watch the whole talk here and don’t forget to turn on the English subtitle:
https://youtu.be/jgaJSS9cIHM
On March 16, the Live and don’t let die: groundwater, the secret agent talked about interesting history of the use of groundwater in India and interesting stories about water and how can this make a link with ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance). The speakers were Arjun Swaminathan from India and Roberto Roche from Brazil.
Arjun brought to the discussion table a history about faith in groundwater in southern part of India – in the Nilgiris Biosphere Reserve. Nilgiris is home of several tribal communities. These tribal communities have a strong connection with groundwater, and they build temples to shows the connection between God and groundwater – and that happens in spring, the rain period!
“They clearly know that their survival is because of the spring water and thankfully they are teaching their younger generations to take care of it right. […] It is very clear that without water there is no god and there is no water without God, so they are interconnected. So that faith remains, we are not talking about religion yet, it is about a faith, it is about worshiping that natural element which is groundwater which we so often consider invisible” (Arjun Swaminathan).
The next presentation was by Roberto Roche, he brought stories of places where he worked and the difficulties of obtaining water, often the only source of water was groundwater.
“After working 20 years in Africa, and the last 10 years in areas like South Sudan, Ethiopia and Somalia, it was common to see these people need badly water, technology was needed to bring water to them. It is necessary for someone to go to these areas to bring water to them and bring technology, bring education on how to use this groundwater. That is the reality of almost 1 billion people around the world, they have to walk 15 to 20 kilometers for a bucket or anything that can bring water for daily use!” (Roberto Roche)
Watch the talk here: https://youtu.be/HjFoQJ72PAw
The last meeting of the week was Groundwater in Indonesia, on the 18th of March, the speakers were Juanita Ayala from Colombia and Azwar Muhammad from Indonesia.
Juanita told us about infiltration wells (a kind of managed aquifer recharge technique) built in communities in Indonesia, the purpose is to infiltrate rainwater into the soil.
“They [Indonesian from communities] use their daily knowledge, their daily experience, their practices to related to the groundwater, to related to water cycle and to build the wells. […] You can see that groundwater is not only about data, about measurements, but it becomes also about preserve the environment for a perhaps spiritual reason or your emotional well-being and that is completely diferrent approach the traditional scientific hard data.”
Azwar Muhammad brought some technical aspects about groundwater in Indonesia and told us a little about the country’s culture, in special Rejoso Watershed.
“We found there is more than 500 community artesian well, 2,400 L/s, and unfortunately these artesian wells are really flowing, it is every second and 24 hours a day and every day, every week, every month, and every year just directly flowing without control! Unfortunately, only 20% that utilize for the irrigations and other 80% is just directly goes to the river and heading to the sea. This water is really really good water, this is a precious water, and it is around like 63 billion L/year just going to the directly to the sea, it is just a waste.”
Watch it here: https://youtu.be/PcO3cbwQSY8
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