I was able to participate in my first webinar yesterday facilitated by the good people at the Rural Water Supply Network (RWSN). The webinar is part of a series that has been running since October this year focusing on a range of issues relevant to the work of the RWSN.

The theme of this webinar was groundwater data and its management in the WASH sector. Various speakers discussed the importance of groundwater data and presented case studies from a number of different regions in Africa.

The importance of good groundwater data was a big theme during the webinar, particularly geographical coordinate information. Much information is either never recorded, or not available to other potential stakeholders, either due to data formats (i.e. hard copies) or formatting (i.e. consistent drilling log standards). There were a number of strategies discussed for improving data collection including easier data collection/reporting systems (such as smartphone apps) or better enforcement of data reporting standards through legal and financial incentives.

As someone very new to WASH but also experienced in hydrogeology I would have appreciated more details on how the groundwater data is used. For some of the case studies, precise location information is perhaps not so critical as they were more regional in nature. It is only once you get down to the local aquifer scale that this information becomes really important.

There is much exciting work being conducted by many organsations. I am particularly interested in mWater, WPDx and igrac and will try to keep up with their work in the future.

This webinar was a good way for me to familiarise myself with some critical issues in the WASH sector as well as introduced me to some key players working in this area. It is one of my long-term goals to get involved in this type of work and hopefully this was a step in the right direction.

From 2-3 July I attended the final conference of the MAGPlan project in Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg. MAGPlan is a five year project funded by the local and state authorities as well as LIFE, the organisation responsible for environmental matters in the EU. The aim of MAGPlan is the removal of chlorinated hydrocarbons from sensitive aquifers underlying the City of Stuttgart.

The City of Stuttgart has a long history of heavy industrial activities associated with the strong automotive and other manufacturing that occurs in the region. Poor management of industrial chemicals, such as chlorinated hydrocarbons used in degreasing processes, has contaminated the underlying aquifers in the region. The contamination issues are exacerbated by the complex geology of the region, including a number of fracture rock aquifers, as well as the importance of the groundwater for filling mineral pools - a sensitive receptor.

While remediation of this contamination has been occurring for over 30 years the MAGPlan project represents an integrated approach to managing clean-up efforts in the City of Stuttgart. The ability of so many different stakeholders to work together is indeed impressive, however to myself, as well as environmental managers from elsewhere in Germany, the integrated management plan seemed be particularly successful due strong investment from the city/state authorities and the EU. From what I understood, these public organisations took on much of the liability for the contaminated sites with this approach. This meant they can control the process much more stringently (hence, 'Integrated Management Plan') but this approach might not be possible in other situations where 'polluter pays' applies. Where clean-up is undertaken and funded by individual polluters with (possibly) different environmental consultancies it is much more likely that conflicts between remediation strategies will occur. Without either strong oversight from an overarching body, such as a local/state authority, the integrated management methodology presented by MAGPlan would be difficult to implement. A strong legal or financial instrument would likely necessary for this integrated contaminated land management approach to be practical in other jurisdictions in Germany, the EU and other parts of the world.

The conference was a worthwhile experience for a number of reasons: I appreciated the application of the many principles and methods that I have learnt during my MSc and PhD research to an important real-world problem. The conference also gave insight into how environmental issues are managed within Germany and in the wider EU context. The opportunity to network with people influential in the environmental sector, both public and private, was also beneficial. Other participants from the University of Tübingen included Prof. Stefan Haderlein and Dr. Carsten Leven, as well as Anneli Schöniger and Adrian Karrais, who attended in association with their employer BoSS-Consult.