Guest Editorial/
Intensive Use of Ground Water and Sustainability
by Emilio Custodio1
Intensive ground water development, especially for
agricultural purposes, has been occurring worldwide for
more than half-a-century, particularly in arid and semiar-
id areas. While intensive development of ground water
produces many benefits, there is concern over the nonin-
ternalized side effects.
Ground water use becomes intensive when, as a con-
sequence of abstraction, flow and/or quality patterns are
notably modified. The resulting changes may be benefi-
cial, negative, or neutral, depending on the scientific,
technical, economic, environmental, social, and/or politi-
cal criteria behind the assessment.
Overexploitation is a widely used but poorly defined
term that mainly singles out the negative aspects of ground
water development. The often shadowy connotations that
accompany the term may result in neglect or downplaying
of the intrinsically favorable characteristics of ground
water and the valuable and positive aspects/benefits of de-
velopment. This includes providing fresh water not only
for drinking but also for improving health conditions, eco-
nomic and social development, and irrigation for allevia-
tion of poverty. Emphasizing negative aspects may lead
laymen and nonspecialist decision makers to the erroneous
conclusion that ground water development is essentially
negative and nonsustainable, while in reality, under control
and sound management, benefits may often largely exceed
direct and indirect costs.
Sustainability refers to the use of natural resources
without jeopardizing their use by future generations. This
goes along with the concept of human beings living in
peace and harmony with the environment, both now and
in the future. In reality, scientific, technical, and social as
well as space and time frameworks, under which sustain-
ability is evaluated, are continuously changing. This
means that what may be sustainable now may not be in
the future, and what may appear unsustainable today may
be sustainable in the future. Present-day decisions must
take the future into consideration. The influence given to
the future, however, depends on the credibility of scenar-
ios considered and the weight given by society and politi-
cians. Analysis of intensive ground water use is a basic
step in evaluating sustainability of development, but it
1Geotechnical Engineering Department, Civil Engineering
School, Technical University of Catalonia, c/. Gran Capità s/n, Ed.
D-2. 08034 Barcelona, Spain; emilio.custodio@upc.edu
Copyright ª 2005 National Ground Water Association.
does not define it since reference may be made to differ-
ent conditions that may exist in the future and must in-
clude consideration of economic and social conditions as
well as hydrogeological processes.
In many countries, especially in arid and semiarid re-
gions, sustainability assessment of water resources must
take into account the fact that users (e.g., farmers) are re-
sponsible for intensive development of ground water,
seemingly an unstoppable phenomenon under currently
existing institutional, economic, social, and political con-
ditions. The reason for this bottom-up evolution in the use
of ground water is that, in many cases, there are immedi-
ate benefits to individuals due to the relatively low invest-
ment required, ease in drilling wells, and widespread
availability of pumps and drainage devices driven by rela-
tively cheap energy. The rapidly expanding ground water
development in arid and semiarid areas has been called
‘‘the silent revolution’’ by M.R. Llamas, who recently re-
ceived the NGWA Lifetime Membership Award. This is
true even in countries where the government strictly im-
poses top-down policies. Consequently, traditional man-
agement of water resources fails due to an inability to
cope with the new circumstances. Regulations, institu-
tions, and users’ participation in management are urgently
needed within an integrated water resource framework to
safeguard benefits and to minimize and compensate social
and environmental costs. This is especially true in arid
and semiarid countries, and particularly, poor areas where
uncontrolled evolution may destroy the benefits associ-
ated with intensive ground water development.
In this respect, it is shocking that the Kyoto’s 3rd
World Water Forum Ministerial Declaration (March
2003) does not include any explicit reference to ground
water and its rapidly evolving role, in spite of efforts by
public and private organizations and the endorsement of
ground water use by UNESCO-IHP, the International As-
sociation of Hydrogeologists and other concerned groups.
Unfortunately, ground water is still not recognized by
most politicians as key to ensuring human rights to fresh
water, urgent health-improvement goals, and the need to
alleviate poverty. The hope is that the 4th World Water Fo-
rum in Mexico, 2006, will convey to social, political, and
media representatives the urgent need to consider the key
role of ground water within the water cycle and under the
umbrella of a widely accepted ministerial declaration of
principles directed to the preservation and wise use of
ground water resources and reserves.
Vol. 43, No. 3—GROUND WATER—May-June 2005 291