Title: International Groundwater Challenges and Opportunities

Abstract: 97% of all liquid freshwater on Earth is groundwater. Groundwater supplies half of the world’s drinking water and nearly half of the water used for growing food. Understanding, conceptualising, predicting, modelling, and measuring groundwater behaviour underpin robust science, management, policy, and decision making. However, due to the complexity of processes involved, understanding and predicting groundwater behaviour remain formidable scientific challenges.

Challenges and opportunities that will be discussed in this talk include:

• subsurface characterisation approaches;
• dealing with geologic heterogeneity;
• stochastic representation of subsurface systems;
• multiphase flow problems and variable-density groundwater flow;
• biochemical transformations and reactive transport modelling;
• optimization problems and approaches;
• modelling surface water – groundwater interaction;
• building physically based, fully-integrated, simulations of catchment-scale hydrologic processes;
• groundwater-dependent ecosystems;
• modelling in a risk-based framework;
• uncertainty analysis;
• model simplicity and complexity;
• data worth analyses;
• groundwater modelling and decision making; and
• dealing with big data and high-performance computing issues.

Bio: Distinguished Professor Craig T. Simmons FAA FTSE is a leading groundwater scientist, recognized for major contributions to groundwater science, science leadership, education and policy reform. Craig is Matthew Flinders Distinguished Professor of Hydrogeology, Schultz Chair in the Environment at Flinders University and Foundation Director of the ARC National Centre for Groundwater Research and Training in Australia. From July 2020, he is seconded to the Australian Research Council in the role of Executive Director for Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry and Earth Sciences. Craig is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science (AAS), the Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering (ATSE) and the American Geophysical Union (AGU). His work has been recognized by numerous national and international research and teaching awards including the Anton Hales Medal for distinguished contributions to research in the Earth Sciences awarded by the Australian Academy of Science, and an Australian Award for University Teaching. In 2015 Craig was named South Australian Scientist of the Year, and in 2017 he was awarded Australian Water Professional of the Year. He received the International Association of Hydrogeologists Presidents’ Award in 2022. Craig is a lead author of the United Nations World Water Development Report “Groundwater: Making the Invisible Visible” and a coauthor of the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report.

WED 2 NOVEMBER 4:00 PM – 5:00 PM AEDT MELBOURNE

ZOOM MEETING ID: 873 1557 5255; PASSWORD: 778635