Groundwater-connected systems: A social-ecological framing, global data-driven applications, and sustainability implications
| dc.contributor.author | Huggins, Xander | |
| dc.contributor.supervisor | Gleeson, Tom | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2024-08-13T18:32:22Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2024-08-13T18:32:22Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2024 | |
| dc.degree.department | Department of Civil Engineering | |
| dc.degree.level | Doctor of Philosophy PhD | |
| dc.description.abstract | Groundwater systems and groundwater science are both at critical moments characterized by rapid change. Human activities continue to transform the land surface and climate, pump groundwater at rates beyond physically renewable limits, and attempt to govern and manage the resource. In recognition of this, groundwater science has broadened in recent decades to account for the interactions between people, ecosystems, Earth systems, and groundwater. Separately yet simultaneously, sustainability science has emerged as a problem-oriented field aimed at understanding interactions between social and natural systems within the contested and normative contexts of sustainability. In this dissertation, I integrate leading sustainability science concepts and methods with groundwater science and demonstrate the utility of this approach through global studies that combine large, multidimensional datasets with spatial data science methods. This work makes contributions under two overarching themes: to support a more comprehensive understanding of large-scale groundwater systems as social-ecological systems, and to explore possible uses of these insights in support of global groundwater sustainability. The fundamental contribution of this study is the development of the groundwater-connected systems framing that provides a language, conceptual foundation, and pathway to consider groundwater systems as social-ecological systems (Paper I). This framing centers a relational understanding of groundwater where groundwater systems are explicitly considered on the basis of biophysical and socioeconomic system interactions rather than on the basis of the resource’s hydrogeological characteristics or physiographic setting. I argue that this framing has useful implications across data collection, scientific investigations, education, governance, and management. The remainder of the dissertation begins to explore some of these opportunities through global-scale data-driven applications. As all global analyses I conduct (Papers III-VI) are based on open-access datasets, I first perform a scoping review of the existing open data landscape to study groundwater systems as social-ecological systems (Paper II). Over 130 datasets are identified and reviewed, and 40 unique datasets are used to generate findings across Papers III-VI. I first apply the groundwater-connected systems framing to develop a global classification and mapping of groundwater’s large-scale (order of 104 km2) biophysical and socioeconomic functions (Paper III). The resulting groundwaterscapes (n = 15) are landscape units that represent specific and broadly occurring configurations of groundwater functions across Earth systems, ecosystems, food systems, and water management systems. The groundwaterscapes are derived using an iterative, two-stage self-organizing map clustering algorithm. Groundwaterscapes contrast with existing groundwater resource maps as all large aquifer systems of the world are characterized by multiple groundwaterscapes. Thus, groundwaterscapes offer a new lens and spatial tool to study groundwater dynamics, inform groundwater data collection priorities, and manage groundwater resources based on an understanding of groundwater systems as social-ecological systems. I subsequently investigate the groundwater sustainability implications of the groundwaterscapes. I do so by developing a complementary global classification of groundwater system risk types, informed by an Anthropocene risk framing. This approach includes both conventional risks such as groundwater storage loss and land use change in addition to unconventional and increasingly prioritized risks such as gender development inequalities and hydro-political tension. Overlaying groundwaterscapes with groundwater risk types generates a spatially explicit mapping of hundreds (n = 270) of unique groundwater sustainability challenges, providing the most comprehensive social-ecological evaluation of the global groundwater crisis to date (Paper IV). Conceptualizing and mapping the global groundwater crisis in this way provides a tool to support solution transfer and network development between regions. I conclude by conducting two studies that demonstrate the broad applicability of the groundwater-connected systems framing in contexts where groundwater considerations are often overlooked or omitted. In Paper V, I assess the social-ecological vulnerability of river basins to experience impacts from the linked threats of freshwater stress and freshwater storage loss, which embeds representation of groundwater storage trends, and identify a set of most vulnerable basins as hotspots for global prioritization. In Paper VI, I delineate the groundwater catchments of the world’s protected areas to highlight how groundwater flow can transmit human impacts occurring outside protected areas to ecosystems within protected area boundaries. | |
| dc.description.scholarlevel | Graduate | |
| dc.identifier.uri | https://hdl.handle.net/1828/17590 | |
| dc.language | English | eng |
| dc.language.iso | en | |
| dc.rights | Available to the World Wide Web | |
| dc.subject | groundwater-connected systems | |
| dc.subject | groundwater | |
| dc.subject | sustainability science | |
| dc.subject | groundwater sustainability | |
| dc.subject | social-ecological systems | |
| dc.title | Groundwater-connected systems: A social-ecological framing, global data-driven applications, and sustainability implications | |
| dc.type | Thesis |