IGRAC presentations on monitoring, SIDS and Climate Change during IAH Congress

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From 25 till 29 September, the 43rd IAH International Congress was held in Montpellier, France. IGRAC was present at this annual event organised by the International Association of Hydrogeologists (IAH) and gave presentations on the role of Small Island Developing States (SIDS) within the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the role of monitoring information technology for international cooperation and studies.

Small Islands and the Water SDG

During session 5.02 on groundwater and global change, IGRAC gave a presentation about 'Monitoring (and achieving) the Water Goal in Small Island Developing States'. Small Island Developing States (SIDS) are quite exceptional because they rely heavily on groundwater and extremely vulnerable to climate change due to their geographic features. This presentation emphasized this dependency on groundwater and discussed what should be taken into consideration when monitoring groundwater as part of implementation of (SDG) Goal 6 on water. The poster 'Monitoring (and achieving) the Water Goal in Small Island Developing States' is available in our downloads section

Groundwater Monitoring Technology

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New GGMN Portal
New GGMN Portal

The second IGRAC presentation was about the role of technology for international cooperation and studies. Groundwater management decisions rely strongly on the availability and quality of monitoring data. Recognizing the need for a systematic collection of groundwater data, IGRAC took the initiative to establish a Global Groundwater Monitoring Network (GGMN). In 2016, a new GGMN Portal was developed based on cloud solutions to enable processing of large data sets from both monitoring stations as well as earth observations. This presentation demonstrated this portal and explained how it can be beneficial for policy makers.