SDC looks back: Collective Lessons from the IAH Groundwater congress 2024

4 Oct 2024 by The Water Diplomat

The International Association of Hydrogeologists (IAH) held the 51st edition of the world groundwater congress in Davos, Switzerland, from the 8-13th of September. The congress was organised by the Swiss Society of Hydrogeology (SSH) and the Centre for Hydrogeology and Geothermics of the University of Neuchâtel (CHYN) and brought together more than 600 participants to present scientific findings and discuss important thematic areas related to groundwater.  The Congress also featured, for the first time, a dedicated session on groundwater in humanitarian settings, which was well received. 

The Congress is dedicated to an inclusive approach to reflections on groundwater, aiming to welcome a diversity of participants both from the perspective of disciplinary background (including representatives of industry, academia and public administrations) and in terms of the aim to foster participation from all around the world. The congress has the explicit aim to facilitate interactions on groundwater that go beyond the scientific community, focusing on international developments on groundwater and their relevance for society. Thus, for instance, in the 2024 edition, plenary debates were organised on topics that have captured public attention in recent years such as the mountain cryosphere and its relationship with groundwater, reversing groundwater depletion trends and preserving groundwater quality for future generations. In addition, the congress featured an artistic exhibition, which is an additional way to develop a relation to groundwater by opening our hearts and our minds to the topic.

At the congress, six water sector experts from the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation within the Foreign Affairs Ministry had the opportunity to reflect together on their experiences of the congress and have shared these thoughts and observations with The Water Diplomat. 

This reflection was set in motion by Mr Silvio Flückiger, acting head of Swiss Humanitarian Aid at Switzerland’s Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, who had the opportunity to make a keynote speech at the opening of the Congress. The speech gave expression to a clear wish by experts from the world of humanitarian assistance and development to enter into a dialogue with groundwater experts: humanitarian actors are open to strengthening the links between knowledge and practice, even if there are still too few who make the next step to actively manage the water cycle.

In his speech, Mr Flückiger emphasised the linkages between science and foreign policy, underlining the role of science in facilitating informed, evidence-based decisions. Mr Flückiger emphasised the critical role played by water in humanitarian settings, as climate change is affecting the water cycle, leading amongst others to floods, droughts and wildfires.

In this context, groundwater, although an invisible resource, is becoming increasingly important for humanitarian responses. In humanitarian settings, groundwater is not just a resource, but it is a lifeline: independently of the crisis at hand, groundwater often becomes the primary—and sometimes the only—source of water. It is therefore important to ensure the sustainable management of groundwater – something that has always been complex but is becoming even more so due to both climate change and the continually increasing demand for water.

With growing pressures, Mr. Flückiger argued, a more integrated and collaborative approach of expertise and practice becomes critical, and the knowledge, research, and innovative solutions developed by academic institutions and the private sector must be effectively translated into practical, hands-on actions. Similarly, the experiences and insights gained from field operations need to inform and guide academic research. This speaks to the importance of different kinds of knowledge, linking scientific insights to the technologies provided by the private sector as well as to the political, cultural, and logistical knowledge held by practitioners.

In this context, a first observation made by the Swiss colleagues was that compliments are in order for the organisers of the congress, as they succeeded in delivering a well organised and efficiently executed event in a very pleasant setting on an extremely important and valuable topic for the water sector.

Having noted this, a discussion did emerge with respect to the diversity of the participants. It was observed that there could potentially have been more diversity in the composition, as the conference did feature a predominance of participants of European origin, as well as strong contingent of academic representatives, which tended to set the tone for the run of events at the congress.

There are structural causes for this phenomenon: The IAH congresses are held in different locations each year and therefore they do have a tendency to host more participants from the region in question. Also, the science community, just as is the case for the humanitarian community, is in many ways tethered to funding mechanisms and dependent on prevailing policies: it must be recognised that scientists may deliver the evidence base for decision making, but they are themselves not policy makers. Similarly, scientists, mostly from high-income countries, attending the conference are embedded in research projects which fund their participation, for the most part funded by one of the numerous high-income country funding mechanisms. Nevertheless UNESCO, with SDC support, managed to ensure the participation of six young professionals from three African countries (Senegal, Burkina Faso and Cameroon).

Hence, unless the humanitarian/development sectors join the scientific community with appropriate funding mechanisms or ideas on how to change these structural obstacles, it will be difficult to overcome them.

By the same token, making the effort to stretch across disciplinary boundaries is very important, and it is important to ask questions about the role of science in society.  On the one hand, the tools for measuring groundwater availability and flows – while still operating within a relatively young science – are rapidly improving. On other hand, it was felt that if the current observations are confirming that groundwater levels and groundwater quality are declining, the conclusions to be drawn from this should go further than the strictly scientific domain which merely confirms the accuracy of measurements - and following the arguments of Mr Flückiger, they point in the direction of stimulating collaborations with policy makers and practitioners.   

A second observation was that, with deep respect for the drive and ambition of the organisers to cover many different groundwater topics in a short space of time, there is a debate to be had about the relationship between the quantity of presentations and the effectiveness of their communication. There were a great number of sessions at the congress, leading to some difficult choices for participants in selecting which one to attend. The process for submission of inputs to the congress could be described as a bottom-up approach, leading to a mix of different sessions with differences in quality from one to the next.  There is clearly a trade off between having a large number of sessions - which carry the risk of often being of a similar type – and the capacity of participants to carefully select sessions and absorb the relevant information.

A third observation – which is related to the previous point – is that it is good to strive for a balance between a structured session format on the one hand, and space for interaction and dialogue on the other hand. If sessions are over-moderated, this can lead to a series of presentations in a managed setting, rather than enabling a more open, discursive format.

For instance, the greater the diversity of presenters in a session, the greater the opportunity to allow for and obtain a variety of opinions. In a peer setting such as those common in the scientific world, there can be pressure for those presenting to seek recognition, a tendency to present success stories and – as a result - less emphasis on the reality that there are sometimes real challenges in obtaining data. The risk that is associated with this approach is that the congress becomes less a “Groundwater Congress’ and more a “Congress of Hydrogoelogists”: groundwater is critically important globally, and therefore it is important to guard against plunging into the depths of thematic expertise and peer learning and remember the importance of communicating in a more open and discursive setting.   

A fourth observation focused on the relationship between surface water and groundwater. In the setting of a groundwater congress, it is to be expected that there will be many highly justified references to the fact that in the water sector, there is a lot of emphasis on surface water issues and that more attention should be paid to groundwater issues. However, the participants concluded that an exclusive focus on groundwater is just as limited as an exclusive focus on surface water. What is needed in the sector, they felt, is not the creation of another denomination, but an integrated approach that links groundwater to a range of other topics in the sector.

An important question raised at the congress revolves around how to reverse groundwater depletion. This legitimate question was answered on the one hand by suggesting that more resources should be devoted to groundwater. However, the fifth observation on this topic was that there is a strong economic driver for groundwater depletion: reducing consumption is therefore one of the critical elements needed to arrest depletion. Another element is the improvement of our understanding of the hydrological cycle and - in particular - ways in which precipitation can be converted to recharge. On the basis of the available data, it is clear that groundwater depletion is taking place in many regions and locations – and yet in many cases there is still not enough data available to enable precise information for decision making, leading to the need for further research and the reinforcing of monitoring systems.

A sixth observation was that sessions on groundwater could benefit from questions around the value of water, such as through presentations from the World Bank, from the Food and Agricultural Organisation, or from rural water consumers.

An evaluation tool often used by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation when evaluating a project consists of six dimensions, which include the economy, policies, cultural and religious aspects, institutional arrangements, technology and science. This approach helps to approach water projects from a range of different angles, also rooted in a need to understand the water cycle better.

In conclusion, the SDC colleagues found the Congress to be an extremely positive and well organised experience, all the more so in view of the fact that, for the first time, a session was proposed on the topic of hydrogeology in humanitarian contexts at an IAH conference, which was warmly welcomed by the organisers. It was felt that there were some entry points for an enhanced experience at the next groundwater congress, and the reflections presented here are ultimately the result of a perfectly organised week which allowed many fruitful discussions amongst colleagues.