An article entitled by Groundwater Use in a Global Perspective Can it be managed?

written
by Karen G. Villholth and Mark Giordano of International Water Management Institute. This paper
focuses on the sustainability of groundwater as another resource other than surface water.

Surface water is vitally important to our everyday life. It is the leading source of water in the
past generation due to lack of technology and due to visibility and readily available. But the
modernization came in, technology for drilling, electrification and pumping are made. Modernization
made the groundwater widely accessible in most part of the earth. Using groundwater encountered
many problems in both developed and developing countries. The problems occur to the groundwater
resource itself, to the environment and to the poor segments of the societies. Due to the inability of
poor or disadvantaged people, they directly depend on the groundwater for their livelihood and even
for their basic needs. Intensive use of groundwater resources has drawn down underground water
resources last 3 4 decades. It may cause permanently loss of it.

Other problems exist in both surface water and groundwater like the mismatch between the location
with high-population, domestic, agricultural and industrial and the availability of water. Groundwater is
now surpassing surface water in importance in many regions of the world, in terms of water supply and
irrigation. And groundwater has a large water reserve that is several times greater than surface water
resources. Groundwater is generally a reliable and good quality water source. Likewise, half of the
worlds population today lives in coastal area where groundwater traditionally provided secure and
adequate water supply.

The paper clearly showed to the reader the different problems encountered in managing the
groundwater. The problem is the proper allocation of the groundwater and the society of consumers.
The misuse of the groundwater due to poor economy or due to self-interest for business may cause
groundwater decline and degradation. And the environment of it being contaminated maybe because of
different factory that has no proper waste management. The paper stated also that the groundwater
aquifer of other region is unfit for intensive exploitation, putting a natural break on unlimited growth in
use. Many of the problems of groundwater management may seem insurmountable. This paper
indicated that to not focus on the resource management itself but rather to the peoples adaptive ability
to overcome stress caused by stagnating groundwater. The author gave key point should be
remembered when considering our options for sustainably managing groundwater in the future. The
socio-economic and sociopolitical characteristics of any groundwater using society as the physical
characteristics of groundwater resources in any proposed management solutions.