Impact of Climate Changes on Groundwater Resources

In terms of natural components, groundwater plays a key role in the geological and geochemical processes, conditions soil and rock behavior, and is a vital component in the natural water cycle, by feeding springs and sustaining surface runoff. Groundwater use has seen a significant increase in the last decades, due to its generally better quality when compared to other aquatic resources, enhanced reliability, and low exploitation costs. Present efforts that include development strategies at both local and regional scales, try to introduce general and coherent principles, which can enable a sustainable development process. In regions experiencing increases in the water resources’ vulnerability due to the impact of anthropic activities and climate change, groundwater use must be performed in accordance with the increasing environmental changes and economic and social requirements.

The climate changes of the last decades increasingly influence all the components of the hydrological cycle and imprint a series of vulnerabilities in the mechanisms for the economic and social exploitation of water resources. The sustainability of natural ecosystems and the evolution of human society largely depend on the availability of groundwater, which in many situations is the only source of water. In the last decades, underground water resources are under extraordinary pressure to meet human needs. Adding to this pressure are the increasingly pronounced changes in the hydro-climatic parameters induced by global climate changes. The available climate scenarios indicate changes in the pluviometric regime, together with variations in air temperature and evapotranspiration, which will increasingly influence groundwater resources. The purpose of this Research Topic is to highlight the impact of climate change on groundwater resources at a different time and spatial scales (regional, continental or global), using various models and statistical analysis to show the direction in which hydrogeological research should be focused to mitigate the vulnerability of those vital resources.

In this Research Topic, we encourage scientific proposals that focus on the evaluation of groundwater resources both spatially and temporally in any region around the globe, but not limited to:

• Analysing the groundwater resources evolution in different climatic scenarios;
• Groundwater monitoring and management systems;
• Estimation of aquifer recharge capacity in different climatic scenarios;
• Interaction between groundwater and surface water;
• Mapping groundwater vulnerability;
• Applications of remote sensing techniques to evaluate groundwater resources;
• Anthroic impact on groundwater resources;