We are pleased to announce an initiative, supported by the UK government's UPGro programme (Groundwater Atlas), to identify and analyse long-term (> 10-year) records of groundwater levels in Africa.
Under this initiative, a 1-day (pre-conference) workshop will be held at the 41st Congress of the International Association of Hydrogeologists (IAH) in Marrakech, Morocco (15-19 September, 2014) to support the analysis of groundwater-level data by workshop participants. Led by Professor Richard Taylor (UCL), the workshop will cover: (i) techniques for compiling and quality checking groundwater-level records, (ii) the analysis of groundwater-level records (e.g. groundwater recharge, discharge) including the assessment of the influences of barometric pressure, groundwater use, climate variability, and environmental change (e.g. land-use, climate), (iii) statistical methods to assess trends in groundwater storage, and (iv) groundwater recharge modelling. Outputs from the 1-day workshop at IAH2014 will inform a jointly authored, strategic baseline scientific review (in an open-access journal) of observed changes in groundwater storage in Africa including assessments of trends and key influences (e.g. pumping, climate variability).
To participate, please complete and submit the attached form in English or in French (by Friday April 18th 2014) describing the groundwater-level dataset(s) to be analysed - this is the "metadata" (not the actual data themselves) to AGW-Net Chair, Tamiru Abiye (Tamiru.Abiye@wits.ac.za), and Professor Richard Taylor (richard.taylor@ucl.ac.uk). For those requiring support to attend the workshop in Marrakech, up to 4 full travel bursaries (including return travel costs, conference registration fee, subsistence costs) are available.
For those unable to attend the workshop at IAH2014, we nevertheless greatly encourage you to submit metadata on long-term groundwater-level records not only to participate in this review but also to ensure that the compiled list of metadata descriptions of long-term groundwater-level records in Africa, "the metadataset", is as complete as possible. The compiled metadata-set will (if permitted by the relevant institutions) be made accessible via the AGW-Net website as well as other (if permissible) data portals.
We look forward to receiving your metadata descriptions and hope to see you at IAH2014.