Preface

Groundwater is vital to human welfare and development and in many countries is the principal source of drinking, irrigation, and industrial water. It is a core component of the hydrological cycle and critical to sustaining many sensitive aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems. 

Because of the prominent role groundwater plays in supporting climate change adaptation strategies, groundwater depletion has grabbed global attention and garnered support for greater attention to its management, including enhanced replenishment through managed aquifer recharge. This report “Seeing the Invisible: A Strategic Report on Groundwater Quality” provides evidence for giving equal focus to groundwater quality as the capacity of the resource to satisfy current use, as well as any future use, is increasingly compromised in the absence of attention to this aspect of groundwater management. 

The chemical and microbiological quality of groundwater is central to its utility, yet the resource remains vulnerable to contamination from both natural and anthropogenic sources. This report, and its companion volume “A Practical Manual on Groundwater Quality Monitoring,” not only provide a rich description of the types and nature of contaminants in groundwater but also the tools, techniques and resources to approach their measurement and long-term monitoring, and how to protect the resource from getting contaminated in the first place. 

This report describes why, and how, groundwater quality is vital to human health, agriculture, industry and the environment. In turn, this explains why it is so important to World Bank staff and clients, as well as diverse managers and administrators in countries and economies at all stages of development. 

The theme of World Water Day 2022 is “Groundwater: Making the Invisible Visible.” This report contributes to this initiative by highlighting the importance of groundwater quality and its role in water resource management. Together with the companion manual, it will assist budget planners, project managers, and water resource managers to embed groundwater quality monitoring in government plans and project designs, and support on-the-ground implementation of its measurement and practical steps for its protection. 

The report is from the World Bank Group and does not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the Lancang-Mekong Water Resources Cooperation Information Sharing Platform website.