This year’s theme for World Water Day is groundwater, making the invisible visible. Groundwater resources globally provide about 50% of all drinking water, about 40% of water used for agriculture, and about 30% of the water supply required for industry, as well as sustaining aquatic ecosystems, maintaining river baseflows and preventing land subsidence and seawater intrusion. In the face of unpredictable global changes, there is a need to increase our understanding of groundwater, improve its governance and implement conjunctive and adaptive management.

To support World Water Day 2022 (22 March), IWA has undertaken a series of actions to raise awareness about this extremely important yet unseen resource.

IWA has organised a webinar on ‘Groundwater: protecting tomorrow’s resources’, to highlight its importance and to provide an overview of what IWA experts in this area are doing globally to contribute to the governance and sustainable management of this invisible resource. The webinar will showcase examples from around the world, with case studies from Kenya, Brazil, India and Denmark.

Additionally, we have published an insightful blog by Dorte Skraem, DANVA, about sustainable groundwater management illustrating the Danish experience and sharing best practices. Furthermore, we have published a blog by Gunver Heidemann, Consultant at the Capital Region of Denmark, about dealing with ‘sins of the past’ and remediating groundwater pollution to protect future drinking water supplies.

Denmark provides a leading example of sustainable use and protection of groundwater. Drinking water there comes entirely from groundwater. As such, groundwater will also be a prominent theme at the IWA World Water Congress & Exhibition which will be held in Copenhagen, 11-15 September 2022.

Below you can find videos featuring Eiman Karar, IWA member and water governance expert based in Sudan, presenting contemporary groundwater issues and details of Track 6 of the Congress on ‘Large Scale Water Resource Management’, under which there will be many sessions dedicated to groundwater. In the other video, Lars Gaardhøj, Chairman of the Regional Council in the Capital Region of Denmark, invites you to participate in the Congress and take part in Technical Tour 1, ‘From well to Tap – groundwater protection and visit to a Danish waterworks’ to boost your knowledge and skills on sustainable groundwater management and protection.

IWA is proud to support the official #WorldWaterDay campaign led by UN Water. As official partners, you will be able to find some of our resources also on the worldwaterday.org website. Head to the website to download the official social media assets.

Share your groundwater story with us, tag IWA and UN Water on social media and tell us: How does groundwater affect your life? Is there enough? Is it safe? What needs to be done to protect groundwater?

Don’t forget to include the hashtags #MyGroundwaterStory & #WorldWaterDay. There is also an online challenge led by UN Water which is open to everyone, check the guidelines here.