Progress in groundwater monitoring in 2021

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This year saw substantial progress in groundwater monitoring. Apart from numerous content updates that have been submitted to the GGMN portal, IGRAC also relaunched its groundwater monitoring app. Another highlight was a hybrid groundwater monitoring workshop in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. 

GGMN portal and groundwater monitoring app

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app 1
New GGMN app

Early 2021, IGRAC launched an updated version of its GGMN - Groundwater Monitoring app. This app enables users to georeference and register groundwater monitoring stations and groundwater level monitoring data in the Global Groundwater Monitoring Network (GGMN) Portal. The app is now available for Android devices and can be downloaded here. Explanation on how to use this app can be found here.

Also, the GGMN portal had some content updates in 2021. Besides from continuing collaborating with the Czech Hydrometeorological Institute and the Federal Office for the Environment in Switzerland (which resulted in updated groundwater levels from these countries in GGMN), the platform is now remotely connected with three national portals to get new groundwater level data automatically. Thanks to the support of the Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) Groundwater Program, the Geological Survey of Sweden (SGU) and the Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate (NVE), groundwater level data can be now shared seamlessly. This process started already in 2018. when a SOS 2.0 connection was established as a test to retrieve data from the Groundwater Information Network of Canada (GIN) into a former version of the GGMN portal.

Groundwater monitoring workshop in Mongolia

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monitoring workshop in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia
Monitoring workshop in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia

On 13-15 September, a training workshop on groundwater monitoring and data analysis for river basin organisations was held in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. This was a hybrid workshop, with most participants being present at the capital’s Fresh Water Resources and Nature Conservation Center and the remaining participants as well as the foreign presenters joining them virtually. The objectives of the training workshop were to train experts and staff of River basin organizations of Mongolia in proper groundwater data collection, processing and management; and to further develop their analytical and mapping capacities for assessing the current state and forecasting trends in groundwater, among others.

IGRAC researchers Neno Kukuric and Claudia Ruz Vargas gave presentations about groundwater from a global perspective, international cooperation, groundwater monitoring, the GGMN programme, the outcomes of the National Groundwater Monitoring Networks global survey, and the use of remote sensing in assessing the change of groundwater resources, based on Global Gravity-based Groundwater Product project (G3P)’s recently developed teaser lecture.