Groundwater Policy

As the global population grows, demands on water will increase dramatically. At the same time, surface water supplies are often over-allocated and becoming less predictable due to climate change. These factors are likely to cause increasing pressure on groundwater resources. Until recently, groundwater laws and policies focused on protecting water supplies for human uses, with little consideration of ecosystems and the goods and services they provide. Increasingly, ecosystem protection is included as a key aspect of groundwater management in diverse places such as the European Union, South Africa, and Australia. To sustain GDEs now and into the future, laws and policies must protect the extent and condition of the GDEs and the water flow and water quality delivered to them. Read our paper in the National Wetlands Newsletter discussing these ideas.

The Nature Conservancy is working with federal, state, and local governments to identify mechanisms for ensuring adequate groundwater supplies to meet the needs of ecosystems in addition to human communities.