GroFutures team members, Mark Cuthbert and Mohammad Shamsudduha, presented new research at the 2018 Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) held from the 10th to 14th of December in Washington DC (USA). On behalf of The Chronicles Consortium, Mark presented a paper, Climate-groundwater relationships revealed by multi-decadal groundwater level observations across tropical Africa (GC51K-0923), based on 14 multi-decadal groundwater-level records or “chronicles” from 9 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa (left photo). Mark and Shams also co-convened a session on Groundwater, Climate, and Adaptation to Hydrological Extremes (H11T) that featured a dozen contributions from around the world. In this session, Shams presented a paper, Sustainability of the world’s large aquifer systems from GRACE and the role of extreme precipitation (H11T-1726), which highlighted the important role of extreme seasonal rainfall in replenishing large aquifer systems in many parts of the world using evidence from GRACE satellite observations (right photo). Mark’s presentation advances substantially understanding of the relationships between climate and groundwater recharge in Sub-Saharan Africa and provides new insight into the extent and scale of focused recharge via ephemeral surface waters. Shams’ presentation highlights substantial limitations in current computation of changes in groundwater storage from GRACE but also shows how non-linearity in computed changes in groundwater storage results, in part, from episodic groundwater replenishment from extreme seasonal rainfall. Well done Mark and Shams!
Mark and Shams (with his son, Safeer) by their posters at the 2018 AGU Fall Meeting in Washington DC