Groundwater Connections and Sustainability in Social-Ecological Systems.

Groundwater resources are connected with social, economic, ecological, and Earth systems. We introduce the framing of groundwater-connected systems to better represent the nature and complexity of these connections in data collection, scientific investigations, governance and management approaches, and groundwater education. Groundwater-connected systems are social, economic, ecological, and Earth systems that interact with groundwater, such as irrigated agriculture, groundwater-dependent ecosystems, and cultural relationships to groundwater expressions such as springs and rivers. Groundwater-connected systems form social-ecological systems with complex behaviors such as feedbacks, nonlinear processes, multiple stable system states, and path dependency. These complex behaviors are only visible through this integrated system framing and are not endogenous properties of physical groundwater systems. The framing is syncretic as it aims to provide a common conceptual foundation for the growing disciplines of socio-hydrogeology, eco-hydrogeology, groundwater governance, and hydro-social groundwater analysis. The framing also facilitates greater alignment between the groundwater sustainability discourse and emerging sustainability concepts and principles. Aligning with these concepts and principles presents groundwater sustainability as more than a physical state to be reached; and argues that place-based and multifaceted goals, values, justice, knowledge systems, governance, and management must continually be integrated to maintain groundwater's social, ecological, and Earth system functions. The groundwater-connected systems framing can underpin a broad, methodologically pluralistic, and community-driven new wave of data collection and analysis, research, governance, management, and education. These developments, together, can invigorate efforts to foster sustainable groundwater futures in the complex systems groundwater is embedded within.

Hotspots for social and ecological impacts from freshwater stress and storage loss.

Humans and ecosystems are deeply connected to, and through, the hydrological cycle. However, impacts of hydrological change on social and ecological systems are infrequently evaluated together at the global scale. Here, we focus on the potential for social and ecological impacts from freshwater stress and storage loss. We find basins with existing freshwater stress are drying (losing storage) disproportionately, exacerbating the challenges facing the water stressed versus non-stressed basins of the world. We map the global gradient in social-ecological vulnerability to freshwater stress and storage loss and identify hotspot basins for prioritization (n = 168). These most-vulnerable basins encompass over 1.5 billion people, 17% of global food crop production, 13% of global gross domestic product, and hundreds of significant wetlands. There are thus substantial social and ecological benefits to reducing vulnerability in hotspot basins, which can be achieved through hydro-diplomacy, social adaptive capacity building, and integrated water resources management practices.