Urban groundwater: policies and institutions for integrated management
Urbanisation is the predominant global phenomenon of our time. Groundwater is a critical, but unappreciated, resource for urban water supply. It is also a serious and costly hazard to urban infrastructure, and the ‘invisible link’ between many facets of the urbanisation process. Many important cities are located in ‘landscape lows’, and their underlying groundwater systems in reality represent both the ‘last reserve’ in terms of water resource and also the ‘ultimate sink’ for persistent urban pollutants. This paper present an overview of the benefits of urban groundwater use, together with some insidious and persistent problems that groundwater can present for urban development. Spontaneous piecemeal approaches invariably mean that ‘one person’s solution becomes another person’s problem’.