Summary of the Issue

The Groundwater Project is a non-profit organization based in Canada. Led by Dr. John Cherry, recipient of the 2020 Stockholm Water Award, the Nobel prize for water, and ​managed by a 11-member international Steering Committee and a larger and globally diverse Advisory Committee. The Groundwater Project is committed to contribute to advancement in education by creating and making available online free high-quality groundwater educational material for all.

Books produced in the Groundwater Project are being led by the world’s leading groundwater experts and are ​designed to educate children, the public and professionals​. Most of the Groundwater Project’s books are intended to further train and educate groundwater specialists.
 
Today, more than a billion people lack safe drinking water worldwide. Groundwater makes up 99% of the Earth’s liquid freshwater and 2.5 billion people depend solely on groundwater today. Sustainable management of groundwater is at the heart of the solution.

The United Nations (UN) has issued a statement calling for action to ensure that groundwater benefits society now and into the future.

“With a lack of information on groundwater, there is an increasing risk of further negligence and sidelining of the issue. This will have significant repercussions on sustainability, as we all recognize the critical importance and human dependence on groundwater in building resilience to climate change and for water and food security across the globe.”
 
The UN highlights the concern of many groundwater scientists, practitioners, and experts regarding the status of global groundwater resources.  “We still do not have sufficient knowledge of the world’s groundwater resources, and more importantly, we do not adequately manage aquifers” (UN, 2020).

What We Need & What You Get

The Groundwater Project will be the source that people throughout the world will rely on for groundwater education and how it relates to other waters and societal needs and issues. It will create synthesized knowledge about all thing’s groundwater for global distribution to raise groundwater consciousness globally.
 
During 2020 and early 2021, twelve original books were published on our website. They are quickly gaining traction worldwide. With a further 200 books currently being written, it is the goal to have them published in the next year and beyond. We invite you to read these incredible books for free at gw-project.org and to help us spread the word by sharing our project with others.

The Impact

In 2021, The Groundwater Project’s goal is to begin the process of expanding the learning from these books into interactive online course modules; we plan to customize this knowledge for different regions of the world (Central America, Africa and the Middle East) and continue translating them into Portuguese, Spanish, Turkish, Arabic, French and Chinese among others.

The materials published by the Groundwater Project will examine all the ways that groundwater resources are being impacted and how these impacts can be monitored, mitigated and improved.

Challenges

Although the Groundwater Project is largely based on volunteerism, funds are essential ​for employed professionals to do project coordination and​ other tasks. The Groundwater Project requires financial support for the following key items:

●  Coordination and liaison, including temporary hiring of undergraduate assistants 
●  Professional services in artistic visual support such as illustrations and videos 
●  Sabbatical support to replace the forgone salary of the best professors so they can produce books now (rather than having to wait for many years until they will retire) 
●  Hiring short-term postdoctoral personnel or graduate students to support research synthesis and organization of information essential to the production of high-quality books 
●  Professional training of volunteers and staff for production of educational self-learning modules in support of the material presented in the books (e.g., set up framework and protocols)
●  Professional assistance for innovation, quality control and educational product enhancements

Please donate to the Groundwater Project and share our message to help us empower global citizens to protect, manage and develop their drinking water supplies for a sustainable future.​