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Project Topic
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Groundwater (GW) is a major source of water supply in Europe. This
natural resource is endangered by several factors, such as improper water
management policies, including over-exploitation, and contamination by
anthropogenic activities. Ignoring the profound consequences of GW
depletion and quality deterioration is the foundation on which
unsustainable water policies are built. The goal of this project is to develop
new management strategies to assist in the sustainable use of two key
components of the GW resource: pumping wells, used to obtain water for
drinking purposes, and natural springs, typically employed for crop
irrigation as well as for recreational use. We ground our activities on
observations linked to two field sites in Italy. These sites are archetypal of
two distinct realities and can be considered representative of diverse
environmental settings and conditions of Europe-wide interest. As such,
key features of our approach and techniques are resilience and
adaptability, so that the approach can be readily adapted and employed in
other European aquifer systems. We will (i) build conceptual models to
describe groundwater system functioning under the influence of uncertain
parameters and processes defined at diverse spatial-temporal scales; (ii)
characterize the fate of emerging contaminants (ECs) such as
pharmaceuticals, personal care products and engineered nanomaterials,
as well as agricultural and industrial chemicals, in aquifers and the way
they may threaten the quality of GW; and (iii) quantify the effect of multiple sources of uncertainty on sustainable management and protection of
groundwater, here including hydrogeological settings, well abstraction
rates, sources of contamination, anthropogenic actions, EC loads, natural
attenuation processes, spatial and temporal distribution of redox
conditions and ecotoxicological concerns. Because geological media are heterogeneous and exhibit spatial
variations on many scales, prediction of subsurface flow and transport are
formidable challenges. These tasks can only be rigorously tackled within a
probabilistic framework. We apply and extend a recently developed scaling framework able to explain a wide range of observations about the
way main statistics and probability distributions of environmental variables
change with (space-time) scale. We adopt a Probabilistic Risk
Assessment (PRA) approach aimed at increasing confidence in decision
making through quantification of risk. Our approach to PRA involves
considering information of various origins and synthesizing them in a
descriptive and simplified set of indicators, easily transferable to decision
makers. Casting the work in a Bayesian framework will enable updating
risk indices by conditioning on data obtained in the experimentallyoriented
parts of the project. Risk analysis will be based on assessing
exposure of a given organism to concentrations of ECs, combined with
ecotoxicological studies, as well as consideration of social implications.
Ecotoxicity tools (bioassays) will allow quantitative assessment of potential
deleterious effects to the environment of the ECs that may be present in
the system. Relevant and application-oriented pilot scenarios jointly
identified with the stakeholders involved in the project will be analyzed.
This will lead to (i) assessment of the contaminant-specific vulnerability of
the aquifer systems, and (ii) improved, physically-based risk assessment
and water management protocols. As such, PRA provides an umbrella
under which knowledge of diverse nature can be blended so that a
comprehensive decision can be taken by properly considering risk
(Decision Making Under Risk). As a concrete and applicable product, we
will provide a decision-making procedure and associated decision matrix for the sustainable use and management of groundwater for civil,
agricultural and industrial activities and ecosystem preservation in the pilot
scenarios.
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