Preface: Optimization for groundwater characterization and management

Abstract

[Extract]: Introduction: Anthropogenic activities conducted in an unplanned manner, and often without a regional-scale view, have led to over-exploitation and wide spread deterioration of groundwater quality. In order to address all the associated groundwater management issues on a larger regional scale, it is necessary to (1) obtain adequate and reliable information regarding the complex geology of the aquifer; (2) develop suitable mathematical simulation models incorporating reliable estimates of hydrogeologic and geochemical parameters, to describe the likely impacts of human interventions; and (3) utilize a suitably formulated decision model capable of prescribing as a solution a set of strategies for optimal management of aquifers, or capable of optimally solving the inverse problem with unknown hydrogeologic or geochemical characteristics. These components are often interrelated. This theme issue, Optimization for Groundwater Characterization and Management, provides a glimpse of the present state of the art, and points towards some of the future prospects in this area.