Coastal aquifers, pivotal freshwater reserves for millions worldwide, are increasingly vulnerable to seawater intrusion due to the joint impacts of climate change and intensive human activity. Rising sea levels, changing precipitation patterns, over-abstraction, land use change, and population growth intensify the stress on these valuable but fragile resources. As salinization threatens groundwater-dependant ecosystem health, agriculture, and urban water supplies, integrated approaches to monitoring, modeling, and managing coastal aquifers are urgently needed.
This session invites contributions that advance understanding, prediction, and management strategies for minimizing seawater intrusion and ensuring sustainable water resources in coastal regions. We aim to foster interdisciplinary discussion on innovative concepts, methods, and policies that support resilience under global change scenarios.
We encourage submissions related but not limited to:
• Field and modeling studies of seawater intrusion processes in coastal aquifers.
• Impacts of climate change (e.g., sea level rise, extreme weather, shifting recharge patterns) on groundwater salinization.
• Effects of groundwater pumping, land use, and urbanization on aquifer vulnerability.
• Advances in observation techniques: hydrochemical/ isotopic tracers, remote sensing, and geophysical methods.
• Integrated management strategies and decision-support tools for sustainable extraction and adaptation.
• Case studies of coastal aquifer restoration
• Nature-based solutions and Managed aquifer recharge (MAR) to enhance coastal aquifer resilience.
• Socioeconomic, legal, and policy dimensions addressing water quality, stakeholder involvement, and governance.
• Multi-scale approaches: from local to global perspectives.
Paolo Tarolli, Gualbert Oude Essink, Gudrun Massmann, Albert Folch