Groundwater

News · 03 Jun 2025

Water is our future – but Sweden still lacks a comprehensive strategy

Sweden is in the midst of a water crisis.

Feature · 11 Jun 2024

Taking root: locally driven forest landscape restoration

Forest and tree cover play a vital role in climate change mitigation and adaptation. As the globe begins to better understand climate change, restoration initiatives are beginning to take root.

Feature · 31 May 2024

Groundwater: How to better protect this hidden treasure?

As part of the Landscape team, SIWI expert Malin Wennerholm focuses on the links between landscapes, forests, and water. Here she tells us more about her project focusing on groundwater in Swedish context.

Feature · 29 May 2024

Water in landscapes: Co-creating climate resilience

A healthy landscape supports the atmospheric flow of water and encapsules various ecosystems that ensure biodiversity, food security, and other goods and services. In a degraded landscape, the water cycle is disrupted, putting ecosystems at risk for collapse, and humans with them. Resilient landscapes are essential for a sustainable and water-secure future.

Feature · 04 Apr 2024

Join us for Source-to-Sea synergies at the Ocean Decade Conference

Leading up to the UN Ocean Conference in 2025, our interdisciplinary event “Catalyzing Source-to-Sea Synergies towards Healthy Rivers and a Healthy Ocean” at the Ocean Decade Conference links science and source-to-sea action across freshwater and ocean communities.

Feature · 23 Nov 2023

Groundwater mapping, transparency and education for improved water governance

Groundwater is the world’s most abundant freshwater resource. To ensure that groundwater is used in a sustainable manner, it is necessary to map, monitor and protect groundwater aquifers.

Feature · 05 Oct 2023

Säkra vår tillgång till dricksvatten redan idag

Efter försommarens larm om extrem torka, likt år 2018, förberedde sig Sverige på en torr sommar med risk för vattenbrist. Med facit i hand vet vi att andra halvan av sommaren präglades av regn och översvämningar i flera delar av landet.

News · 10 Mar 2023

What role does freshwater play in climate mitigation? 3 questions to Nureen Faiza Anisha

Freshwater ecosystems are intimately linked to climate as they can both absorb and release greenhouse gas. In a webinar on 16 March, SIWI and partners will explore the mitigation potential and water-related risks of freshwater systems. Nureen Faiza Anisha gives us an overview.

Feature · 20 Dec 2022

Groundwater Summit 2022: The culminating event of the UN-Water year to make the invisible visible

The UN-Water Summit on Groundwater, a high-level conference on the world’s largest liquid freshwater resource, puts a spotlight on groundwater’s crucial role for achieving SDG 6 and other interlinked goals.

Feature · 17 Nov 2022

Where does the water go?

Our human rights depend on safely managed sanitation. The Human Rights to Water and Sanitation as well as the Human Right to a Healthy Environment are vulnerable to the downstream impacts of poorly managed sanitation.

News · 17 Nov 2022

On the road to a water revolution

The climate meeting COP27 has already meant a step forward in the recognition of the role of water in climate action. But this is only in the beginning. Next year, a United Nations conference and a global commission hope to revolutionize how water is valued and managed.

Feature · 14 Nov 2022

Revisiting The Clean India Mission for World Toilet Day 2022

With World Toilet Day approaching, on November 19th, it is a good time to revisit the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) in India to investigate the impacts the programme might have had on sanitation and groundwater, the theme of this year.

Feature · 14 Nov 2022

Safely managed sanitation from source to sea

This year World Toilet Day examines the impact sanitation has on the natural environment, namely groundwater. Poorly managed sanitation risks pollution of groundwater as well as ecosystems downstream such as rivers, forests and the ocean. We spoke to Chris Clapp, Executive Director of Ocean Sewage Alliance about how a source to sea approach to managing sanitation can protect the ocean.

Feature · 11 Nov 2022

Realising rights through safe sanitation

Around half of all drinking water globally comes from groundwater, and a quarter of all water withdrawn for irrigation. Safely managed sanitation can protect groundwater and in turn the right to drinking water and to a healthy environment.

News · 01 Sept 2022

5 conclusions from World Water Week 2022

World Water Week 2023 will focus on innovation and societal transformations, building on the vibrant discussions at this year’s Week about the multiple values of water. Here are some important trends and conclusions from SIWI ahead of a decisive year for water and climate action.

Feature · 03 May 2022

Whispers from a Jordanian watershed

The year is 2050. People and planet are thriving in peace and prosperity. How did we get here? A world where all the Sustainable Development Goals of 2030 have been realised. This series of illustrated stories imagines ‘visions of water’ inspired by real world projects and partners of SIWI. We imagine a future when we have recognised the unseen powers of water. The first vision in the series explores the power of water to collate peace.

News · 29 Mar 2022

How well do you know groundwater? 10 questions to uncover this hidden treasure

Groundwater, by definition, lays in the soil – out of sight. It is the world’s most abundant freshwater resource. But pollution and over-consumption threaten this hidden treasure. To understand it better is the first step to protect it. Take this quiz to start your journey!

Feature · 24 Mar 2022

Communication and collaboration to protect groundwater

Three organisations: SIWI, Sydvatten and the Geological Survey of Sweden came together for World Water Day to talk about groundwater, an invisible resource whose impact is visible everywhere. SIWI’s youth focal point Georgette Mrakadeh-Keane offered closing remarks and here shares her reflections on the day and how groundwater affects us all, whether we realise or not.

News · 22 Mar 2022

World Water Development Report with focus on groundwater

The 2022 UN World Water Development Report sheds new light on the world’s most forgotten freshwater – the groundwater hidden under our feet. SIWI’s Dr Jenny Grönwall is one of the experts contributing to the report and here she shares some of the most important insights.

Feature · 17 Mar 2022

World Water Day 2022: Groundwater and water-related human rights

In 2022, the water community highlights groundwater to make it more visible. It provides half of all water withdrawn for domestic use and therefore vital to realise the human right to safe drinking water. However, as this resource – and the households and communities relying on wells and boreholes – are not sufficiently understood, we tend not to recognize the worth of groundwater as we should.

Guidance, methods and frameworks · 17 Apr 2024

Framtidssäkra kommunen med hållbar grundvattenförvaltning

Medlemmar i Swedish Water House klustergrupp om grundvatten släppte 2024 presentations-material med tillhörande faktaskrift, som riktas mot kommuner. Materialet presenterades under ett webbinarium och kan användas inom kommuner för att höja kunskapen om grundvatten.

Reports and papers · 20 Sept 2023

Building momentum to accelerate adoption of source-to-sea management

This report is the first ever analysis of the implementation of the source-to-sea approach. The applicability of this holistic approach is demonstrated and recommendations to accelerate adoption of source-to-sea management are offered.

Policy publications · 21 Dec 2022

Groundwater in Sweden: An overview of the current conditions and its potential 

Groundwater is the earth's largest freshwater resource. In Sweden, it is widely used for drinking water supply, but the interest to secure food production and self-sufficiency during recurring drought may increase the need for groundwater in irrigation. The resource is vulnerable to changing climatic conditions, over exploitation and pollution. More data and knowledge need to be collected and made accessible in order to protect groundwater for the water provision to communities and for the resilience of ecosystems.

Supporting knowledge products · 11 Nov 2022

Catching Raindrops in Africa

The project Transforming Investments in African Rainfed Agriculture (TIARA) is preparing the business case to change the trajectory of current investments in agriculture. This has the potential to boost food security in Africa, in the face of climate change.

Policy publications · 18 Oct 2022

Recommendations: Cross-Border Groundwater Cooperation and International Human Rights Law

We live in times when the debate is increasingly shaped by national sovereignty and framed in terms of securitization arguments, in favour of – or in opposition to – the sharing of water resources. International cooperation and joint management are becoming ever-more important, including to develop and protect groundwater resources.

Reports and papers · 12 Jun 2022

Executive summary: Unpacking freshwater’s role in climate change mitigation

Freshwater can make or break our ability to successfully implement many climate change mitigation solutions. Our upcoming report, launched in the autumn 2022, will present why, where, and how freshwater should be integrated into climate change mitigation plans and activities, to enable effective transition to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions.

Guidance, methods and frameworks · 21 Mar 2022

World Water Day 2022: Factsheet on groundwater and self-supply

Case studies · 07 Mar 2022

Safeguarding Shared Interests Through Cross-Border Cooperation and Management

A case study of the Ethio-Djibouti Transboundary Water Project and the Afar Rift Valley/ Afar Triangle Aquifer

Reports and papers · 04 May 2020

Virtual jobs: African Smallholder Farmers and food imports

Every tonne of food imported into Africa could have been grown there. This would provide jobs, save money and increase food security: making countries more resilient. Rethinking food imports could positively impact the livelihoods of African smallholder farmers. Every billion dollars spent on importing food is equivalent to hundreds of thousands of “Virtual Jobs”. These […]

Policy publications · 02 Dec 2019

Implementing the Paris Agreement through Water Solutions

Resilient water management is crucial to achieving the objectives of the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement. In this policy brief you will find recommendations for countries and organizations on how to use water solutions for ambitious and transformative climate action.

Project · 30 Oct 2020

International Centre for Water Cooperation

The International Centre for Water Cooperation generates and shares knowledge on water cooperation within and between countries. It is hosted by SIWI under the auspices of UNESCO.