The UK summer drought in 2022 produced significant speculation concerning how its termination could affect the national soil resource. It also highlighted a knowledge gap regarding the wider effects of drought on soil properties and functions in temperate soils. BGS scientists have contributed to a recently published review bringing relevant information together to address the knowledge gap and aid policymakers.

The paper focuses on agricultural and ecosystem drought in the UK, which is when soils experience dry periods that affect agriculture production and ecosystem function. However, each individual drought has its own characteristics with respect to length and intensity, with antecedent conditions particularly important to its overall impact.

Vegetation dieback is the most widely recognised effect of drought, often demonstrated in the media using satellite images. Questions frequently concentrate on crop yields, the impact of drought on food production and likely increases in retail prices. Another observable effect of drought in the UK (and globally) is that of soil cracking, which occurs when expansive clay minerals dehydrate and shrink, which may lead to undermining of foundations of houses and infrastructure. The process is of major economic consequence, with damage to infrastructure in the UK estimated at around £100 million a year, sometimes reaching £400 million in very dry years (Harrison et al., 2022).

Responses of soils and catchments to drought termination

Beyond the impact of drought on agricultural production and ecosystem function, a major concern is how the breakdown of soil may affect the soil resource in terms of runoff and potential erosion. This may influence surface-water quality through the transfer of sediment and nutrients. However, theoretically, dry soils should have the greatest potential for infiltration and, when the infiltration rate remains greater than the precipitation rate, erosion of the soil through the generation of runoff is less likely to occur. The response of both soils and catchments to drought termination in the short term will therefore initially be determined by the intensity and duration of precipitation, with intense storms more likely to generate conditions where rainfall exceeds infiltration capacity.

Impact of drought on soil properties

As we can have no long-term prior knowledge as to whether a drought will occur, evidence on how it affects soil properties is hard to obtain unless the drought coincides within the time frame of longer-term monitoring experiments of soil processes. However, experiments examining wetting and drying cycles provide some insight into the range of impacts on biological, chemical and physical processes in soils.

Infiltration depends heavily on soil structure, with many interactions occurring between the biological and physical components of the soil system, particularly in the production of sticky substances that help particles bind together in aggregates. The activity of bacterial and fungal communities in soil is generally negatively impacted by dry conditions and this may lead to some loss of soil structure, potentially affecting infiltration rates of precipitation. In addition, the activity of soil macroinvertebrates with body widths generally between 2 and 30 mm (such as earthworms, woodlice and millipedes) may decrease. These creatures are commonly seen as soil ecosystem engineers, as they create pathways for water drainage.

The biogeochemical cycles of major nutrients, including the production of greenhouse gases, may change due to the effects on the microbial communities that decompose organic matter. This can lead to flushes of nutrients and greenhouse gas emissions upon re-wetting.

Other effects may include:

• more pronounced shrink–swell behaviour than usual in soils containing expandable clays, leading to deep cracking and possible damage to infrastructure
• an increase in the water repellency of soils, particularly those soils high in organic matter, leading to greater surface runoff
• plant responses to drought that can severely reduce the plants’ protective effect, leaving soils exposed to erosion processes and degradation

Soil resilience to and recovery from drought

One focus of soil research in recent years has been exploring its resilience to and recovery from perturbations, of which drought is an obvious major one. ‘Resilience’ relates to the resistance (degree of change) coupled with the recovery (rate and extent) from a disturbance (Constanje et al., 2015).

The nature of precipitation, its intensity and frequency will help determine how soils initially respond to and recover after drought termination. It is likely that the physical, biological and chemical recovery from drought will happen over a variety of time scales, and some parts of the system may reflect an ongoing altered state.

The management of soil organic matter (SOM), a fundamental influence on soil moisture and structure, through cultivation practice and cropping will be important. Higher SOM concentrations offer greater resilience, at least in initial drought periods.  However, increased information is required regarding how biological soil communities, soil moisture dynamics and soil structure recover and how these affect biogeochemical cycles.

Conclusions

The paper reports on how the large number of interactions present between physical, chemical and biological soil properties helps explain soils’ response to drought. However, the results reviewed are drawn largely from experiments examining wetting and drying cycles.

Unlike UK ground and surface waters that have been continually monitored over historical periods, thus allowing assessment of the effects of droughts, soil data collected during actual drought periods from existing experiments are few. This means that knowledge relating to how key soil properties such as soil structure and biogeochemical cycling respond before, during and after a drought is needed for greater understanding. Collecting this data requires long-term experiments. The use of sensors, particularly to monitor soil moisture and shallow groundwater, along with the development of novel sensors could provide the basis of these experiments, allowing drought impacts to be placed into wider contexts.   

In addition, further gaps in our knowledge exist regarding soil water repellancy, the impact of wildfires on soils, multiple stressors (heat; moisture) and the effects of successive extreme events on soil systems, for example drought followed by flooding. On a planet that is experiencing more extreme climate events, addressing such questions will help identify actions that can be taken to build more resilient soil ecosystems.

The research paper, ‘’, is now available to read in full online. 

About the author

51ÁÔÆæ’s multi-hazards and resilience (MHR) science challenge area engages with partners in the UK and internationally to support communities, governments and industry in building resilience to hazardous events. Jonathan will oversee the delivery of fundamental scientific research into risk mitigation and adaption to geological and associated environmental hazards through improved characterisation, monitoring, forecasting and information delivery.

Based at the BGS Headquarters in Keyworth, Nottingham, but working across all BGS sites, this role involves leadership of around 100 scientific and technical staff. One of Jonathan first tasks will be to work alongside other members of the BGS Senior Management Board and Science Strategy Group to implement and deliver the new BGS Business Plan.

Jonathan is an engineering geophysicist with more than 25 years of experience in subsurface imaging and monitoring. His recent research has focused on geohazard characterisation, landslide early warning and the development of innovative technologies for assessing environmental impacts on critical infrastructure, including risks associated with cascading hazards. He has a strong focus on innovation and the translation of research findings into tangible benefits for stakeholders in industry, academia and government.

Jonathan currently leads the BGS Shallow Geohazards and Earth Observation capability, which comprises the geodesy and remote sensing, engineering geology, environmental and engineering geophysics and coasts and estuaries teams, as well as the BGS Research and Development Workshop Facility. He is also a 51ÁÔÆæ Individual Merit Promotion scientist.

I am delighted to be taking on the role of BGS Chief Scientist for multi-hazards and resilience. BGS has a crucial role to play in the efforts to enhance societal resilience to geohazards and multi-hazards in the UK and internationally. I am very excited for this new opportunity to work with my colleagues and partners to deliver cutting-edge research, real-world solutions and geoscientific knowledge to support policy and decision makers for the wider public good.

Prof Jonathan Chambers.

On behalf of BGS and the BGS Board, we are thrilled to welcome Jonathan into this important role. His proven track record in shallow hazards research and his expertise in providing solutions for societal resilience to geohazards and multi-hazards in the UK and internationally will be paramount in supporting and delivering the BGS Strategy and Business Plan.

Dr Karen Hanghøj, BGS Director.

Forty-four academic fellows have been selected as part of UK Research and Innovation (51ÁÔÆæ)’s policy fellowship programme to work in 21 government departments and five What Works centres across the UK.

Roxana Ciurean, a geohazard scientist in the Multi-hazards and resilience science area at BGS, has been selected as one of these fellows, who are set to play a crucial role in enhancing policymaking and contributing to a more secure and resilient society.

For the next 18 months, Roxana’s research will centre around understanding how integrated emergency management (IEM) principles are applied in practice, especially in policy development, planning and response to disruptive events. Through mixed methods, research and collaboration with government officials, stakeholders and the public, she aims to provide valuable insights to enhance Scotland’s resilience capabilities.

I am delighted to be part of this transformative fellowship and to be working closely with the Scottish Government. It an incredible opportunity to utilise research evidence in response to real-world challenges, influencing policy development and making a positive impact on the safety and well-being of our communities.

Roxana Ciurean, BGS Geohazard Scientist.

Funding

Since it was piloted in 2021, the 51ÁÔÆæ policy fellowships programme has more than doubled in scale and expanded the range of research disciplines. The 2023 scheme is funded by the , the and the .

The Ministry of Science and Technology in Taiwan and the Natural Environment Research Council in the UK are funding a two-year project to establish a new partnership between researchers from BGS and the National Cheng Kung University (NCKU) in Tainan, southern Taiwan.

The NCKU-BGS team has been sharing and developing knowledge and expertise related to groundwater resources under change in Taiwan and the UK with the aim of developing a future programme of joint research. Following a earlier in the summer of 2023, four BGS hydrogeologists, data scientists and environmental modellers have recently returned from a reciprocal visit to Taiwan. There, we experienced the central role that water, particularly groundwater, plays in the life of Taiwan. Here, they share the innovative water science and engineering currently being undertaken by colleagues in Taiwan and a few insights into some of the water resource and environmental management challenges being addressed by the project. We also share some personal reflections on the on a memorable visit.

Taiwan: a country of geological extremes

Taiwan is situated between the Taiwan Strait and the Philippines Sea, on a complex convergent boundary between the Philippine Sea Plate and the Eurasian Plate. It is just over one tenth the area of the UK: about 400 km long and 150 km at its widest. It has a series of mountain ranges thrown up along the plate boundary that runs along the length of the centre of the island. There are over 200 peaks higher than 3000 m above sea level and the highest point is Yu Shan at 3952 m (the 18th largest prominence globally), making Taiwan the world’s fourth-highest island.

The central ranges consist of westward-dipping, fault-bounded blocks of Permian to Neogene age. The steep ranges are covered by thick, subtropical forest and a series of steep catchments that drain to a wide, low-lying alluvial plane to the west of the Central Mountain Range. The plain is almost a quarter of the landmass of Taiwan and consists of a thick sequence of Quaternary to modern alluvial deposits washed down from the mountains. The vast majority of the population of 23 million people live on the plain and almost all of Taiwan industry and agricultural production is located there.

Being on a convergent plate boundary, Taiwan is very seismically active. The last major seismic event was in 2016, when a magnitude 6.4 earthquake sadly led to over a hundred deaths, mainly in the Tainan area of southern Taiwan. The Central Mountain Range also has high geothermal gradients. As Taiwan is largely dependent on imported energy, the potential for development of home-grown, low-carbon sources of energy is an ongoing focus for research.

The area to the north of Taipei, Taiwan capital city, is particularly geothermally active and the landscape there is protected by a series of national parks. We visited the to see features of the volcanic landscape as well as active fumaroles, hot springs and sulphur deposits. At Sulphur Springs Valley, sulphur deposits have been mined intermittently since the 1300s.

A local treat, perhaps after a walk along one of the excellent hiking trails through the Yangmingshan National Park or just as a Sunday afternoon social with extended family or friends, is to go to the Sulphur Springs Valley ‘Feet Pool’. Here there are a series of circular, open-air, communal ponds, each a little bigger than a child paddling pool, where you can sit on low stone walls dangling your legs and feet into the geothermal waters. These are toe-curlingly hot, with the coolest pool at about 40°C, but once you’re in it a wonderfully relaxing and convivial experience.

Water and groundwater in Taiwan

Taiwan has a tropical to subtropical monsoon climate. Average rainfall is around 2.5 m per year (about two and a half times the global average) but, in the Central Mountain Range, annual rainfall totals can locally reach 3 m per year. Most rain falls in the monsoon season between May and October: in the south, this accounts for about 90 per cent of the annual precipitation but is only about 60 per cent in the north of the island.

Typhoons are most frequent between July and October, with four direct landfalls a year on average. Rainfall can be intense during typhoons, with rates of greater than 100 mm per hour regularly recorded. Taiwan catchments are some of the steepest in the world; when combined with typhoon rainfall, this means that the catchments also transport vast amounts of alluvium to the coast. Erosion rates of 3 to 7 mm per year lead to hundreds of millions of tons of sediment being swept through the catchments each year. It has been estimated that Taiwan contributes about two per cent of the annual global sediment flux.

About 25 per cent of the rainfall in Taiwan (approximately 88 billion m³) is lost to evaporation; about 70 per cent feeds surface runoff and the remaining 5 per cent (about 4 billion m³) is recharged to groundwater. However, because most of the surface runoff is lost by direct drainage to the sea, 42 per cent of the total water used in Taiwan annually (18.1 billion m³) comes from surface water flows, 35 per cent from groundwater and 23 per cent from reservoir storage. The surface water runoff is highly seasonal and, even at the start of the dry season, many of the rivers will have ceased to flow, meaning that the country is reliant on groundwater and water from reservoirs for much of the year.

Taiwan irrigated agricultural production is predominantly fed by groundwater abstracted from the alluvial aquifers of the western coastal plain, whilst public water supply and water for Taiwan high-tech sector are primarily dependent on surface flows and from reservoirs on the western flanks of the central mountains. Over the last few decades, unsustainable groundwater abstraction for irrigation has locally led to subsidence, with negative effects on built infrastructure and increased coastal flood risk.

There has been an increased drive to provide resilient water supplies for industry since a major drought in 2021, when there was a failure of the monsoon that resulted in restrictions in water for industrial and other uses. This made global headlines as it threatened semi-conductor production. Taiwan is one of the most globally significant producers of semi-conductor chips and up to 8 l of ultra-pure water are used to wash each square centimetre area of chip during manufacture.

Novel water management schemes

On a visit to the Tainan Hydraulic Laboratory (THL) at NCKU, we heard how multiple approaches are being used to improve the resilience of the water environment and to manage subsidence associated with overabstraction of groundwater. These include:

• decreasing groundwater abstraction through improved agricultural efficiency and pumping-well management
• land-use zoning and regulation of abstractions near major national infrastructure, such as along the route of the national high-speed rail line
• measurement of variable subsidence with depth using an array of combined groundwater level and novel, multi-layer compaction monitoring boreholes across the western alluvial aquifer

Whilst at the THL, BGS Chris Jackson and Jon Mackay presented some of the innovative approaches used by our environmental modelling team to address water resource management issues in the UK.

We also visited three engineering schemes in the Kaoping River catchment in Pingtung County in Southern Taiwan. The first scheme, the Err-fon Irrigation Scheme, consists of a subhorizontal collector well emplaced in the hyporheic zone (the underground zone where surface water and groundwater mix) of the Kaoping River as it the emerges from the foothills of the Central Mountain Range. The collector well is based on a similar construction built at the same site over 100 years ago:

• one in one hundred slope
• triangular section
• just over 2 m tall
• about 300 m long

Even though the river regularly dries out in the dry season, groundwater from the hyporheic zone provides year-round flow to the local irrigators. It also has significantly reduced turbidity compared to the river surface water.

We then visited the Great Chaozhou Artificial Lake. This is a large, 300 hectare, managed aquifer-recharge scheme. It takes water from the Kaoping River during the wet season (at a rate of about 115 m³ per second) and delivers it to a series of ponds and a wetland for wildlife. The first two ponds act as sediment traps whilst the third pond is for groundwater recharge. It is estimated that the scheme currently provides annual recharge to groundwater of 146m³ a year.

The alluvial plain below the scheme is an area of groundwater overabstraction and land subsidence and is consequently increasingly susceptible to coastal flooding. The scheme addresses the issues of both groundwater overabstraction and coastal flooding.

Finally, we visited a large radial collector well scheme lower in the Kaoping River catchment. Again, this large, modern facility was emplaced in the hyporheic zone of the river bed and is capable of supplying groundwater to about 10 000 people year round, even when the surface flows had ceased.

Make time for food and conversation

One of the joys and privileges of spending time with colleagues from other institutions in their home countries is being introduced to their cuisine and having time for considered conversations, rather than the quickly grabbed snacks and brief discussions that are common in our normal day-to-day working lives. In Taiwan, this was no exception and our NCKU hosts generously provided ample opportunity to try Taiwanese food. A few of the highlights for the BGS team included:

• street food at one of Tainan many night markets
• deep fried prawns with brown sugar sauce, hundreds and thousands and a glace cherry (yes it does work!)
• grouper in a rich soy gravy
• Oolong tea from the high mountains

The Pinglin Tea Museum, New Taipei City, was informative and insightful, providing lots of interesting information on how tea is grown and made in Taiwan, explaining the cultural importance of tea to the Taiwanese, and celebrating it with an amazing collection of fine tea sets and tea-related paraphernalia.

The challenge of a changing environment and research opportunities

As well as the field trips and introductions to the wider work of the NCKU team, we continued to work on our three core activity areas while we were in Taiwan:

• analysis of groundwater drought in Taiwan
• the first analysis of the delayed flow spectrum using stream flow data from both Taiwan and the UK
• development of the first groundwater forecasts for Taiwan

As previously mentioned, the drought of 2021 in Taiwan highlighted the need to better understand droughts in general and groundwater drought in particular at a national scale across Taiwan. The NCKU-BGS team are using the standardised groundwater level index (SGI), previously developed by BGS, in combination with a range of statistical techniques to characterise the recent spatio-temporal distribution of groundwater droughts in Taiwan to better understand controls on drought formation and propagation.

Understanding the baseflow of rivers — the flow contributed by the catchment rather than direct flow generated from rainfall — is central to the effective management of water resources in semi-permeable and permeable catchments. Baseflow is delivered to rivers over a wide range of timescales; however, to date it has typically been characterised over a fixed, relatively short time window (successive five-day periods). BGS has recently developed a new technique to analyse baseflow over a much wider range of time periods, potentially giving a fuller understanding of the phenomenon. This new method is being applied to stream-flow data from both the UK and Taiwan to test its applicability over the widest range of flow regimes, catchment characteristics and driving climatologies.

Finally, for a number of years, BGS has provided a service of seasonal forecasts of groundwater levels. Working with our partners at NCKU, we are trialling the approach for the first time in a monsoonal setting and working with them to develop the first groundwater forecasts for Taiwan.

Thank you to our partners at NCKU

We would like to thank all our colleagues at NCKU for such a stimulating and interesting visit. In particular, many thanks go to Prof Yeh for arranging the itinerary so thoughtfully, to Prof Hsu and Prof Chen for thought-provoking conversations and their hospitality, and to Dr Huang, Dr Yang and Dr Peter Chen for their company in escorting us throughout our stay in Taiwan.

Contact

If you would like to know more about the ‘Groundwater resources under change in Taiwan and in the UK’ project, please contact BGS Hydrogeology

Further reading

On 30 October 2023, BGS project manager and senior surveyor Rhys Cooper and marine geoscientist Catriona Macdonald took the 4000-mile journey to Ascension Island, an isolated volcanic island in the Atlantic Ocean, to undertake the first stage of a UK Government-funded project.

In 2019, BGS was awarded funding from the UK Government through , a grant scheme by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) that funds projects aiming to protect unique biodiversity and improve resilience to climate change within the UK Overseas Territories. Following a four-year delay due to COVID-19, the project is now underway. The first expedition focused on mapping the shallow waters surrounding Ascension Island, including an area of the island that has never been mapped or surveyed before.

Working with the Ascension Island Government, this BGS-led project will determine the character, distribution and extent of the nearshore habitats of the Ascension Island Marine Protected Area (AI-MPA) through an integrated programme of surveys. The AI-MPA is rich in biodiversity; however, protected areas such as this are most at risk from anthropogenic development and climate change.

Resulting sea-floor habitat maps will provide the Ascension Island Government with urgently needed tools to better monitor and protect marine ecosystems, as well as underpin the evidence-based management of the AI-MPA. The data will be merged with an existing dataset collected by the Royal Navy UK Hydrographic Office (UKHO) in 2021, which has already enabled the deployment of an array of sensors to monitor the movement of sharks. The combined datasets will also allow the first detailed geomorphology, substrate and habitat maps to be produced for the island, down to a maximum depth of 1000 m.

Ascension Island is a remote location and therefore presents many unique challenges that need to be overcome if we are to be successful. We have had numerous delays that proved fortuitous: the Royal Navy completed a survey around Ascension Island during COVID-19 lockdowns, which significantly reduced the amount of data we needed to collect, lowering costs and enabling us to refine and focus our survey campaigns.

The Ascension Island Government owns a boat that was made available to the project. This simplified logistics but required a totally different methodology for deploying the survey equipment. An appropriate solution was found and trialled in the UK before shipping the equipment to Ascension Island. This ‘warm-up’ survey allowed us to check it worked, was safe to operate and ensured we had all the equipment needed.

Rhys Cooper, project manager and senior surveyor.

The team is set to return to Ascension Island in January 2024 to complete the next stage of the project, which will focus on seabed sampling. A high-definition drop camera with laser scaling will be deployed to enable accurate mapping of the sea floor. The project is expected to be completed in April 2024.

This project is funded by the UK Government through .

Gravel-dominated beach and barrier systems are common around the UK and provide important coastal defences, especially in low-lying regions. A new, four-year research project, funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and entitled ‘Gravel barrier coasts’ (GBCoasts), will deliver enhanced understanding and modelling of gravel barrier systems. The project aims to support more sustainable coastal management by increasing resilience and reducing the vulnerability of coasts to climate change.

51ÁÔÆæ will use a new community modelling system, ‘Coastal modelling environment (CoastalME)’, alongside terrestrial, marine and groundwater models, to characterise how a combination of processes along gravel barrier coasts control coastal flooding and erosion.

CoastalME will produce numerical simulations to support multi-hazard analyses under present and future climate change scenarios. These will project, over a range of timescales:

• how multi-hazards will respond to predicted climate change processes and impacts
• how humans are affecting future hazards
• how we will be affected under different coastal management scenarios; for example, how do gravel barriers respond to individual events, such as storms, in the context of longer-term, ‘progressive’ trends, such as sea-level rise?

The results will support improved coastal management decision making based on the improved understanding of how gravel barriers evolve over longer time scales under different climate condition and human intervention scenarios.

The findings will be combined with an assessment of the role of coastal habitats, resulting in national maps of vulnerabilities of coastal habitats to climate-driven multi-hazards for protective services. BGS will also provide tools to analyse the efficacy of future coastal management schemes.

The GBCoasts project will enable us to better address the transformational challenges that many communities along the UK coastlines are facing today and in the near future, regarding ever-increasing risks of coastal flooding and coastal erosion.

Andres Payo Garcia, BGS Coastal Geomorphologist.

In order to achieve the objectives of GBCoasts, there will be a collaboration between the different sectors of UK academics, engineering consultants and research institutions.

The Environment Agency (EA) Chief Scientist Group commissioned a series of essays in 2022, aiming to collate and appraise the current research and scientific understanding of drought and its effects. Published on 28 November 2023, the review is the EA largest-ever consultation of drought experts in England and includes an essay by John Bloomfield, the groundwater resources science lead at BGS, and Christoper Jackson, BGS Head of Environmental Modelling.

The essay, , addresses droughts in the groundwater component of the terrestrial water cycle in England and identifies a series of knowledge gaps that frame future research needs.

It includes an overview of groundwater drought research, observational evidence for groundwater drought in England, modelling and forecasting of groundwater droughts and a summary of the knowledge and research gaps, including opportunities for future research.

Thirteen knowledge or research gaps are outlined in the essay by BGS, with associated opportunities for future research also identified. These include:

• a systematic review of methods used to define meteorological, hydrological and other types of drought
• establishing instrumentation to characterise drought propagation through the full terrestrial water cycle in catchments representative of the range of hydrogeological settings in the UK
• mapping the sensitivity of groundwater systems in England to drought

The EA Chief Scientist Group want to build on the review findings and identify where further research could deliver benefits for drought management and resilience, both now and in the future.

Groundwater can provide a resilient supply of water and supports ecologically important flows during shorter droughts; however, it is particularly susceptible to prolonged droughts. We were very pleased to contribute to this initiative from the Environment Agency as it gave us the opportunity not only to benchmark BGS extensive work on groundwater drought characterisation, analysis, modelling and forecasting, but also to work with partners to identify the outstanding research gaps and needs across the terrestrial water cycle.

 

John Bloomfield, groundwater resources science lead at BGS.

This review was commissioned by the EA Chief Scientist Group, which provides scientific knowledge, tools and techniques to enable us to protect and manage the environment as effectively as possible.

Alongside the review, the Environment Agency Chief Scientist Group has also produced a blog, .  

On 18 October 2023, the Geological Survey of Northern Ireland (GSNI) launched a new book and digital aquifer map, ‘’, alongside BGS.

Groundwater is the water that is present beneath the land surface in pore spaces and fractures in rock. The book presents a regional overview of the current understanding of Northern Ireland groundwater environment, hydrogeology and groundwater resources.

A new digital aquifer map of Northern Ireland has also been released alongside the book. The map contains 11 different aquifers (bodies of groundwater); each aquifer has different characteristics such as how groundwater flows through it and the groundwater chemistry.

It wonderful to finally launch this book and map. Northern Ireland has some excellent groundwater resources that we get to showcase in the book and map, which will continue to support our society and economy. We anticipate that these products will support a new wave of groundwater development that will benefit Northern Ireland and the UK.

Paul Wilson, BGS Hydrogeologist.

51ÁÔÆæ Hydrogeologist Paul Wilson and Brighid Ó Dochartaigh, BGS Senior Hydrogeologist, co-wrote the book with Dr Mark Cooper, GSNI Chief Geologist, and Rebecca N Chonchubhair, GSNI Hydrogeologist.

The book aims to help stimulate further interest in groundwater as a critical natural resource that used for public and private water supply. It also provides support for further development of groundwater resources in Northern Ireland, including new groundwater and geothermal energy supplies, and improved hydrogeological risk and environmental impact assessments for new developments.