Background:
Groundwater is a critically important source of water in the U.S., supplying fresh water for drinking supplies, agricultural irrigation, and streams, rivers, and ecosystems. However, groundwater is becoming increasingly depleted in most aquifers around the country, with impacts including shrinking aquifer storage capacities, land subsidence (and associated impacts like higher flood risk), and declining freshwater resources for communities and ecosystems. To mitigate and reverse the depletion of groundwater storage in local aquifers, many communities are turning to managed aquifer recharge (MAR) and aquifer storage and recovery (ASR). MAR and ASR practices vary depending on local geology, groundwater and recharge water composition, local land use practices, and water use requirements. Implementing MAR and ASR requires careful planning to both maximize groundwater replenishment and protect groundwater supplies from contamination.

Our speakers are:

• Timothy K. Parker, PG, CEG, CHG. Principal Hydrogeologist, Parker Groundwater | Slides  | Video
• Graham Fogg, Professor of Hydrogeology, University of California, Davis | Slides  | Video
• Van Kelley, Senior VP, Principal Hydrogeologist, Intera Geoscience & Engineering Solutions | Slides  | Video

Thank you to our media partners, the American Geophysical Union, American Institute of Professional Geologists, American Meteorological Society, Association of State Wetland Managers, Environmental and Engineering Geophysical Society, Geological Society of America, the Geo-Institute of the American Society of Civil Engineers, National Association of State Boards of Geology, National Ground Water Association, and the Soil Science Society of America.

Resources to learn more:

•  View this webinar's Question & Answer session
• National Ground Water Association website and more resources:
  • NGWA Information Brief: Managed Aquifer Recharge
• California Department of Water Resources website
• Texas Water Development Board groundwater division website
  • 2017 Texas State Water Plan (interactive website)
  • 2011 report, "An Assessment of Aquifer Storage and Recovery in Texas"
• International Association of Hydrogeologists Commission on Managing Aquifer Recharge website
• U.S. Geological Survey Report: Groundwater Depletion in the United States (1990 - 2008)
• Scanlon BR, Reedy RC, Faunt CC, Pool D, and Uhlman K (2016). Enhancing drought resilience with conjunctive use and managed aquifer recharge in California and Arizona. Environmental Research Letters, 11(3).

Search the Geological Surveys Database for reports and factsheets about groundwater.

The combination of frequent droughts, changing climate conditions, and longer fire seasons along with urban development expansion into wildland areas has resulted in more difficult conditions for managing wildfires. Over the last several decades, the size of wildfire burn areas has increased substantially and nine of the 10 years with the largest wildfire burn areas have occurred since 2000. Wildfires are causing more frequent and wider-ranging societal impacts, especially as residential communities continue to expand into wildland areas.  Since 2000, there have been twelve wildfires in the United States that have each caused damages exceeding a billion dollars; cumulatively these twelve wildfires have caused a total of $44 billion dollars in damages. As of 2010, 44 million homes in the conterminous United States were located within the wildland-urban-interface, an area where urban development either intermingles with or is in the vicinity of large areas of dense wildland vegetation. These challenging conditions present a unique opportunity to adapt existing wildfire policy and management strategies to present and future wildfire scenarios.

Our speakers are:

• Tania Schoennagel, Ph.D., Research Scientist, University of Colorado-Boulder | Slides | Video
• David Godwin, Ph.D., Southern Fire Exchange / University of Florida | Slides | Video
• Vaughan Miller, Deputy Chief, Ventura County Fire Department | Slides | Video

This webinar is co-sponsored by the American Association of Geographers, American Institute of Professional Geologists, Geological Society of America, Southern Fire Exchange, Ventura Land Trust

Resources to learn more:

•  View this webinar's Question & Answer session
• Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity website 
• National Fire Protection Association: DataLab
• National Interagency Fire Center website 
• Joint Fire Science Program website
• Southern Fire Exchange website
• U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Northern Research Station: The 2010 wildland-urban interface of the conterminous United States. Martinuzzi et al. (2015)
• U.S. Environmental Protection Agency: Climate Change Indicators in the United States
• U.S. Forest Service: National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy
• U.S. Geological Survey: Emergency Assessment of Post-Fire Debris-Flow Hazards
• National Association of State Foresters, Coalition of Prescribed Fire Councils: 2015 National Prescribed Fire Use Survey
• Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: Adapt to wildfire in western North American forests as climate changes. Schoennagel et al. (2017) 
• Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: Human-started wildfires expand the fire niche across the United States. Balch et al. (2017) 
• Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: Impact of anthropogenic climate change on wildfire across western US forests. Abatzoglou, J.T. and Williams, A.P. (2016) 
• Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: Rapid growth of the US wildland-urban interface raises wildfire risk. Radeloff et al. (2018)
• International Journal of Wildland Fire: Bridging the divide between fire safety research and fighting fire safely: how do we convey research innovation to contribute more effectively to wildland firefighter safety? Adams et al. (2017) 

Search the Geological Surveys Database for reports and factsheets about wildfires.

Groundwater is often a "transboundary" resource, shared by many groups of people across town, county, state, and international boundaries. Changes in groundwater resources can create unique challenges requiring high levels of cooperation and innovation amongst stakeholder groups, from individuals to state and federal government.

The High Plains Aquifer (HPA), which spans eight states from South Dakota to Texas, is overlain by about 20 percent of the nation’s irrigated agricultural land, and provides about 30 percent of the groundwater used for irrigation in the country according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Work by the Kansas Geological Survey indicates that some parts of the aquifer are already effectively exhausted for agricultural purposes; some parts are estimated to have a lifespan of less than 25 years; and other areas remain generally unaffected (Buchanan et al., 2015).

The 2016 Critical Issues Forum was a 1-½ day meeting covering multiple aspects of groundwater depletion in the High Plains. Presentations covered the current state of the High Plains Aquifer and water usage from scientific, legal, regulatory, economic, and social perspectives. State-specific perspectives were provided from Kansas, Nebraska, Texas, and Oklahoma, and a variety of issues were discussed surrounding communication, negotiation, policy, and the influence of climate change. Break-out sessions and participant discussions identified lessons learned and best practices from the High Plains Aquifer experience that might apply to other regions facing changes in the Earth system.

The Forum was hosted by the Payne Institute for Earth Resources at the Colorado School of Mines, and sponsored by the Geological Society of America, the National Ground Water Association, the American Institute of Professional Geologists, the National Association of State Boards of Geology, and the Association of American State Geologists.

For more information about the Forum, including the final report, please visit the 2016 Critical Issues Forum home page.