Leap in Swedish freshwater monitoring for water supply risk mitigation

Episodes of water shortage during the dry summers of 2018 and 2019 show that climate-related risks to water supply are increasing in southern Sweden.

Risk assessment and high-resolution water resources monitoring are needed to quantify current and future water supply risks and aid water supply management. There is, however, a current lack of detailed monitoring of ground- and surface-water resources (GW and SW).

Thus, our proposed project aims to: i) conduct a comprehensive analysis of current and future climate-related risks on water supply, ii) develop state-of-the-art techniques for detailed monitoring of SW and GW, and iii) design a decision support system for artificial GW recharge, to inform current and future water supply management in southern Sweden.

Risk analysis will reveal areas that display the combination of high climate-risk impacts and vulnerable water supply resources.

A geodetic technology called Interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) and artificial intelligence (AI) will be combined to develop a high-resolution SW and GW monitoring system for unmonitored small lakes and aquifers.

The system will use AI algorithms to determine suitable locations for artificial recharge, taking depleting aquifers and excess SW into account.

A decision support system will then be designed by integrating water supply risk-related analysis, GW, SW time-series, and suitable locations for aquifer recharge.