Vision and Progress Report
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geochemistry The Groundwater Project Online Platform for Groundwater Knowledge A Global Vision towards Understanding the Planet’s Water Resources Vision and Progress Report Version – May 2021 John Cherry, Ying Fan, Allan Freeze, Paul Hsieh, Ineke Kalwij, Doug Mackay, Stephen Moran, Everton de Oliveira, Beth Parker, Eileen Poeter, Warren Wood, Yan Zheng In a call for bold innovation, Zenia Tata (Water Abundance XPRIZE) states: “Water is the universal link between human survival, our climate system and sustainable global development”. The UN Secretary-General's message on World Water Day, on March 22, 2019, stated that 2.1 billion people live without safe water, and that growing demands, coupled with poor management, have increased water stress in many parts of the world. Climate change is adding dramatically to the pressure, and by 2030, an estimated 700 million people worldwide could be displaced by intense water scarcity. The global water crisis is urgent and requires innovation to identify, prioritize, and accelerate global solutions. The focus must include groundwater because it makes up 99% of the Earth's liquid freshwater. The Groundwater Project (GW-Project), a non-profit organization, registered in Canada in 2019, is committed to contribute to advancement in education and brings a new approach to the creation and dissemination of knowledge for understanding and problem solving, relying on experts around the globe to volunteer as authors and reviewers. Motivated by the 1979 textbook “Groundwater” by Dr. Allan Freeze and Dr. John Cherry, hundreds of participants (and growing) from many countries across the Globe are working with a common vision to provide hundreds of digital books and supporting materials, free-of-charge, downloadable at the GW-Project Platform at https://gw-project.org. The GW-Project is administered at the 1 University of Guelph, ON, Canada. Mission Promoting Groundwater Learning Vision Providing knowledge tools for developing groundwater sustainably for humanity and ecosystems. The GW-Project’s mission is innovative in that it encompasses an entire realm of environmental science (all things groundwater) documented by volunteer experts from around the globe in online books aimed at education for readership at all levels and all global circumstances to serve humanity and our Planet’s ecology. This has not been done before for any realm of environmental knowledge or any other science realm as far as we know and so we should view it as an experiment. But we are now three years into this project, enough to see that the experiment is going well based on the confirmed publication scheduled for this year and 2021 and numbers of committed scientist and practitioners (including retirees) to write and review books. This report is a comprehensive overview of GW-Project vision, groundwater project framework, philosophy, contribution to education, management structure, contributors (authors and reviewers), and books scheduled for publishing in 2021 although it is expected more will be added. 1. Synopsis The GW-Project is a large international collaborative and continuing effort focused on producing series of high-quality electronic books and supporting materials that will be made available for free at the GW-Project Platform at https://gw-project.org.The GW-Project is the publishing house for all the books. The books are written and edited by expert scientists and practitioners volunteering their time to realize a shared vision: knowledge should be free, and free knowledge should be the best knowledge synthesized in a unifying framework. The GW-Project endeavors widespread groundwater education covering all aspects of groundwater relevant for our world community. The philosophy behind the GW-Project is to democratize groundwater knowledge meaning that there should be full accessibility to good quality knowledge and the ability to share this knowledge, thereby overcoming current impediments related to groundwater publications. Groundwater suffers from being hidden and misunderstood, and the GW-Project aims to raise groundwater consciousness and educate on what is needed for essential monitoring and sustainable groundwater management (monitoring, corrective actions, and protection). The GW-Project books will cover nearly all aspects of the hydrologic cycle. Groundwater is the essential sustaining reservoir underpinning all Earth’s freshwater: rivers, lakes, and wetlands. Yet, groundwater is assaulted from all directions mostly because of unintended consequences. The freshwater cycle is losing its resilience because it is dependent on stressed groundwater. Aquifers The GW-Project is administered at the 2 University of Guelph, ON, Canada. are being pumped unsustainably, chemical pollution is common, and the types of groundwater contaminants are increasing. Important knowledge needs to be captured before it is lost as groundwater practitioners age. Many who have conducted foundational studies since the 1970s are volunteering to transfer their wisdom through the GW-Project, which aims to capture their reflections and synthesis. Groundwater is not treated as a specific educational unit in academia. Although interdisciplinary treatment of groundwater in academia provides rich diversity in approaches and perspectives, the concept that groundwater is the sustaining force of surface water and its ecological systems is greatly underappreciated. The GW-Project, by design, will present groundwater as the integrative theme for understanding subsurface and surface freshwaters in both their natural and disrupted states. Further readings on the GW-Project philosophy are presented in Appendix A. The GW-Project is strategically positioned to make an unparalleled unprecedented contribution to education. The objective of the GW-Project with respect to university education is twofold: to achieve more effective learning and to free up time for instructors to engage the students in experiential learning, which requires hands-on lab experiments, field activities, and active modeling exercises. Hence, the GW-Project is planning to prepare learning modules and videos and is seeking advice and examples of effective field and laboratory exercises aimed at engaging students in hands-on activities. Key to the mission of the GW-Project is to foster rapid knowledge dissemination and methods to universities everywhere including those in developing countries so that those with inadequate teaching resources for comprehensive groundwater education can direct their students to synthesized knowledge at a high global standard. Emphasis is on overcoming inadequacy in knowledge and technical resources for improved access to safe drinking water in both remote rural areas and the large urban centers where there is water poverty. GW-Project contribution to education is described in Appendix B. The GW-Project scope has evolved over time, and what started as an initiative for developing books with university education in mind evolved to a scope that includes books for everyone everywhere. To that end, The GW-Project is organized into four categories and 23 Domains which contain Topics and Books covering broad themes in groundwater. Many Books have supporting materials ranging from basic to advanced that enhance knowledge coverage. The categories are: 1. Children’s Books - dedicated to all sorts of groundwater information for children; designated as Domain A Books. 2. Introductory Books - covers a wide range of groundwater topics, written for a broad audience; designated as Domain B Books. 3. Overview Books – comprehensive books which cover groundwater topics in a larger context in a descriptive manner (mostly without equations); designated as Domain C Books. 4. Specialized Books – primarily tailored towards groundwater education at the university level and continuing education for groundwater professionals; designated as Domains D through W Books. The GW-Project is administered at the 3 University of Guelph, ON, Canada. The 23 domains are described in Appendix C. The 23 Domains The GW-Project is administered at the 4 University of Guelph, ON, Canada. The GW-Project is led by Dr. John Cherry, recipient of the 2020 Stockholm Water Prize, and managed by a 11-member Steering Committee and larger and globally diverse Advisory Committee. Appendix D introduces the team and provides further information on the GW- Project management. Nearly 400 well-recognized scientists from around the world have agreed to participate as authors and reviewers, and more are engaging. These contributors are associated with over 200 organizations worldwide. The United States Geological Survey (USGS) has been for a hundred years the world’s leading groundwater research organization and the GW-Project is honored with the large number of emeritus and current USGS scientists contributing as authors. Appendix E includes the complete lists of authors, reviewers, and participating organizations. The GW-Project aims for widespread global education about groundwater; materials are produced in English first and soon after translated into several other languages. Work on the GW-Project began in 2017, and the first round of publications is planned for release in August 2020. More than 200 books are actively in preparation by experts around the globe for publication in 2020 and 2021. The GW-Project ultimately expects to publish hundreds of books over the next few years. The Groundwater Project Framework The GW-Project is administered at the 5 University of Guelph, ON, Canada. 2. The GW-Project