Global Drinking Water Resources
Conjunctive Surface Water & Groundwater Management
Groundwater from wells provides almost 50% of global drinking water (Smith, M., K. Cross, M. Paden, and P. Laban. 2016. Spring — Managing groundwater sustainability. IUCN, Gland, Switzerland.
Siebert, S., et al. 2010. Groundwater use for irrigation — a global inventory. Hydrology and Earth Systems Science 14, no. 10: 1863–1880. www.hydrol-earth-syst-sci.net/14/ 1863/2010/doi:10.5194/hess-14-1863-2010.Gleeson, T., K.M. Befus, S. Jasechko, E. Luijendijk, and M.B. Cardendas. 2016. The global volume and distribution of modern groundwater. Nature Geoscience 9, no. 2: 161-167; Margat, J., and J. van der Gun. 2013. Groundwater around the World. CRC Press/Balkema).
Asia-Pacific is the largest region in the world in terms of both area (28 M km) and population (4.7 B). The region is the largest groundwater abstractor in the world (UN WWDP 2022).
Surface water and groundwater drinking water resources are under study in this website. However, there is more focus on groundwater. It is acknowledged that there is routinely a connection between the coordinated use of surface water and groundwater, i.e., conjunctive surface water and groundwater management. Surface water streams and rivers are often fed by shallow groundwater - these are termed gaining streams. There are a
Water quality remains a key consideration for global water management, not only for addressing low quality discharges that affect other uses and have environmental impacts, but also for examining the most efficient water quality for a specific purpose (IWRA 2018).