GENESIS – “Groundwater and dependent Ecosystems: NEw Scientific basIS on climate change and land-use impacts for the update of the EU Groundwater Directive”

THE CHALLENGE Groundwater resources are facing increasing quantitative pressure from land-use and consumption pressures. In some areas, groundwater quantity and quality have been reduced, resulting in negative impacts on drinking water and important ecosystems relying on groundwater. There is a strong need to reduce input of pollutants to prevent groundwater pollution. Additional threats from climate change are unknown, highly interwoven and complex. PROJECT OBJECTIVES The objective of GENESIS is to integrate pre-existing and new scientific knowledge into new methods, concepts and tools for the revision of the Ground Water Directive and better management of groundwater resources. The research will: i) link the present knowledge to an integrated model from sources of pollution to the recipient ecosystem, ii) improve the understanding of pollutant leaching from different land-uses both in time and space considering also uncertainty, iii) develop a better understanding of how ecosystems depend on groundwater, iv) understand how changes in land-use and climate affect the groundwater and dependent ecosystems, and v) develop better cost-efficient management and monitoring tools and transfer the research results to stakeholders and end-users for better management.