2012 NGWA Ground Water Summit: Innovate and Integrate

Fractured rock and karst aquifers are extremely valuable resources because they contain plentiful quantities of readily available groundwater, and they currently supply approximately 25 percent of the world’s population with fresh water. Groundwater professionals face formidable challenges in protecting, managing, and characterizing groundwater resources in fractured rock and karst because these are some of the least understood hydrogeologic environments due to inaccessibility, heterogeneity, and complex recharge-discharge, geochemical, and hydrostratigraphical relationships. Furthermore, increasing global population, multiple demands for water, climate change, and sustainability questions complicate the level of understanding needed to properly pose and solve fractured rock and karst groundwater problems. These challenges are not amenable to simple solutions using traditional methods. This session therefore provides a platform for confronting these challenges and explores new scientific understanding, new technologies, innovative applications of existing methods, and multidisciplinary approaches. This session also discusses linkages between technical solutions, public perception, and education.