Ali Meshgi (Deltares)
Large scale groundwater
management
22-02-2023

Groundwater
FAO, 2010

3
Depletion
results in
subsidence
Mega cities
Drought
Groundwater
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Large
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Reference situation
4
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Start human activities
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Start human activities
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Impact human activities
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Impact human activities
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Climate change
9
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Climate change
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Climate change
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Preparing for the future
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Community questions
How much groundwater can we
extract?
How to develop sustainable
groundwater management
What is the environmental impact
of groundwater extraction?
What is the impact of climate
change on our groundwater
availability?
What are the sources of
groundwater contamination?
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DSD-SEA
2023
Large
scale
groundwater
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Developing strategies for:
• Groundwater
• Surface water
• Water use sectors
• Infrastructure
Based on:
• System analysis
• Field and lab tests
• Monitoring
• Models
• Stakeholder engagement
• Solutions / measures
• Governance
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Large
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What can we, as Deltares, do?
15
Measuring and
monitoring
Before implementing
measures, understand
the water system first
Act now to prevent
future threats
Raise awareness of the
urgency
DSD-SEA
2023
Large
scale
groundwater
management

What can we, as Deltares, do?
16
Measuring and
monitoring
Before implementing
measures, understand
the water system first
Act now to prevent
future threats
Raise awareness of the
urgency
Integrated modelling
DSD-SEA
2023
Large
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groundwater
management

What can we, as Deltares, do?
17
Measuring and
monitoring
Before implementing
measures, understand
the water system first
Act now to prevent
future threats
Raise awareness of the
urgency
Time Series analysis
DSD-SEA
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Large
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groundwater
management

What can we, as Deltares, do?
18
Measuring and
monitoring
Before implementing
measures, understand
the water system first
Act now to prevent
future threats
Raise awareness of the
urgency
Engineering solutions
DSD-SEA
2023
Large
scale
groundwater
management

What can we, as Deltares, do?
19
Measuring and
monitoring
Before implementing
measures, understand
the water system first
Act now to prevent
future threats
Raise awareness of the
urgency
Stakeholder participation
knowledge exchange with
the community
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Large
scale
groundwater
management

Modeling needs to be easier and faster
20
Groundwater modelling with iMOD
iMOD
D-Water Quality
(DELWAQ)
D-Flow FM
& wflow
WOFOST
MetaSWAP
WQ-SUBCR
iMOD-WQ
iMOD-WQ-
Heat
RIBASIM
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NHI – National Hydrologic Instrument
Goal: one national hydrological instrument of the
Netherlands for:
• National surface water system
• Regional surface water system
• Unsaturated zone
• Groundwater system
21
NHI development joint effort of several institutes
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Data availability
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groundwater salinity
Geology, boreholes
22

Deltares ambition: easily set up a ground water model
somewhere in the world …
and connect to other hydrological concepts …
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Open source global scale groundwater modelling
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https://publicwiki.deltares.nl/pages/viewpage.act
ion?pageId=22184032
2. Clip 3. Model
1. Get data

Different global data sources

Data mining and machine
learning to extract the
required data
Thorslund, J., Van Vliet, M.T.H., 2020. A global dataset of surface water and groundwater salinity
measurements from 1980–2019. Sci. Data 7, 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-020-0562-z
Gurmessa, S.K., MacAllister, D.J., White, D., Ourdraog, I., Lapworth, D., MacDonald, A., 2022.
Assessing groundwater salinity across Africa. Sci. Total Environ. 828, 154283.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.154283

Text mining process
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Information
Extraction Data Base Text Mining Outcomes
Raw Text
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Trend in groundwater head over the period of 1958-2015
(source: global groundwater modelling)
Sahel region
➢ With global modelling, knowledge on
groundwater, local data and potential future
climate, we can:
❑ Identify potential areas where changes in
groundwater availability or drop of
groundwater levels could be a driver for
migration
❑ Assess the suitability of an area to host a
refuge settlement based on groundwater
availability and future changes
(ideally to combine the above two items with
surface water availability)
Example on application of global groundwater model
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Transboundary aquifer fluxes (km3/y)
Example on application of global groundwater model
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Example on application of global groundwater model
offshore fresh groundwater resources (OFG)
Zamrsky, D., Oude Essink, G.H.P., Sutanudjaja, E.H., Van Beek, L.P.H., Bierkens, M.F.P.,
2022. Offshore fresh groundwater in coastal unconsolidated sediment systems as a potential
fresh water source in the 21st century. Environ. Res. Lett. 17, 1–22.
➢ large volumes of fresh groundwater below the
seafloor in many coastal areas around the world
➢ a temporary source of water in water-stressed
coastal regions.
➢ total volume of these resources is estimated at
1.1 million km3
➢ 10% of the amount of fresh groundwater that can
be found on land
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Q & A
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Contact
www.deltares.nl
info@deltares.nl
@deltares
@deltares
linkedin.com/company/deltares
facebook.com/deltaresNL
Ali.Meshgi@deltares.nl