Groundwater in the Urban Environment: Proceedings of the 27th IAH Congress, Nottingham, 21-27 September 1997 Book

Groundwater plays a critical, but complex and often unrecognised, role in the urban environment. In many cases it is of major importance in municipal, private industrial and domestic water-supply. Groundwater conditions are also of primary significance in the construction and maintenance of the subsurface engineering structures (such as tunnels, sewers, underground storage facilities and building foundations) and more generally in urban drainage.
Concomitantly urbanisation profoundly affects groundwater flow and quality, and this can seriously impact upon urban infrastructure and lead to a spiral of socio-economic and environmental decline. Nevertheless, urbanisation is intimately linked to economic development and thus presents an unprecedented challenge for environmental management, since by 2000 about 50% of the world's population will be urban dwellers.
In the developed world where urban growth is stabilising, the industrial legacy of contaminated land represents a serious groundwater pollution threat and may be a significant contributor to inner city declin~ I~addition, the abandonment of groundwater abstraction for water-supply in city centres is leading to rising groundwater levels which are threatening urban structures.
Ip rapidly-developing economies the urban explosion is accompanied by uncontrolled groundwater exploitation and by indiscriminate solid and liquid waste disposal, resulting in increasing scarcity and deteriorating quality of groundwater. This results in escalating water-supply costs and can seriously threaten human health.
It was against this background that the International Association of Hydrogeologists decided to focus its XXVII (1997) Congress on the theme of'Groundwater in the Urban Environment'. The congress had as its principal .
objective the review of sustainable use of the ground for water-supply and waste disposal in urban areas from various perspectives, the aim of drawing lessons on: Appropriate survey and evaluation methodologies; Groundwater risk assessment and classification; Aquifer protection and remediation strategies; Groundwater management in urban planning.
The 118 papers published in the first volume and the 46 in this second volume were written by senior groundwater specialists from a wide spectrum of the world's urban environments - both in terms of hydrogeological conditions and socio-economic evolution. They will be of interest to practising professionals and graduate students in geological, hydrogeological and environmental science, and to engineers and planners responsible for the development and management of all aspects of the urban infrastructure.