New approaches to explore submarine groundwater reservoirs

18 June 2019/Kiel. Today, more than 20 scientists from all over Germany met at the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel to discuss the research needed for the exploration of submarine groundwater resources. Water is becoming increasingly scarce as the world's population grows. This makes the discovery of are huge freshwater reservoirs below the seafloor all the more important, for example off Cape Town, which was almost completely cut off from the fresh water supply in spring 2018 due to a drought.
As a result of the global shortage of water, it is to be expected that many coastal states will now begin to use the water reserves under the sea. To ensure that these resources are not consumed immediately and are still available to future generations, it is important to find out how quickly water resources regenerate in rainy seasons. It must also be clarified to what extent the extraction of submarine groundwater impairs groundwater resources on land.
All these questions require new technologies and new scientific approaches, which must be developed within the framework of future research projects. During the one-day workshop at GEOMAR, a strategy was developed on how German environmental research can contribute to this.