Potential Benefits of Managed Aquifer Recharge MAR on the Island of Gotland, Sweden

Managed Aquifer Recharge for Water Resilience

Managed aquifer recharge (MAR) is part of the palette of solutions to water shortage, water security, water quality decline, falling water tables, and endangered groundwater-dependent ecosystems. It can be the most economic, most benign, most resilient, and most socially acceptable solution, but frequently has not been implemented due to lack of awareness, inadequate knowledge of aquifers, immature perception of risk, and incomplete policies for integrated water management, including linking MAR with demand management. MAR can achieve much towards solving the myriad local water problems that have collectively been termed “the global water crisis”. This special issue strives to elucidate the effectiveness, benefits, constraints, limitations, and applicability of MAR, together with its scientific advances, to a wide variety of situations that have global relevance. This special issue was initiated by the International Association of Hydrogeologists Commission on Managing Aquifer Recharge to capture and extend from selected papers at the 10th International Symposium on Managed Aquifer Recharge (ISMAR10) held in Madrid, Spain, 20–24 May 2019.

Water Supply Delivery Failures—A Scenario-Based Approach to Assess Economic Losses and Risk Reduction Options

Access to a reliable water supply is central for a well-functioning society. However, water supply systems are subject to a wide range of threats which may affect their ability to provide water to society. This paper presents a novel risk assessment approach that enables thorough analyses of economic losses and associated uncertainties under a range of water supply disruption scenarios. The purpose is to avoid sub-optimization when prioritizing between risk reduction measures, by integrating the full range of possible outcomes from low to high probability events. By combining risk analysis with cost-benefit analysis, additional information is provided on measures for leveraging investments in managing and reducing the risks. This enables the identification of the most economically profitable risk reduction alternatives and enables decision makers to build strategic capacity for operating in difficult and uncertain futures. The presented approach is exemplified on the island of Gotland, one of the most water scarce areas of Sweden.