The Groundwater Project is a Canadian-based charitable NGO focused on “making groundwater understandable” by providing free, peer-reviewed learning materials in multiple languages. That means the publication of dozens of original works, nearly one hundred translated books (in 59 languages), multiple interactive groundwater educational tools/modules, and over 50 high-quality educational videos, all made possible by a dedicated international group of over a thousand volunteer professionals.
Founded in 2018, this non-profit is led by Dr. John Cherry, who recognizes groundwater as being the foundation of ecosystems, agriculture, and human resilience. Groundwater makes up 99% of all liquid fresh water on Earth, supplies drinking water to half the global population and half the world’s megacities, and underpins 40% of the world’s food supply through irrigation. Despite that, it is being depleted, contaminated, and mismanaged at a rapid pace while the vast majority of people, policymakers, and even non-specialist scientists remain largely unaware of the crisis unfolding beneath our feet.
Water poverty affects 3 billion people, and aquifer depletion is pushing one-third of the world’s largest aquifers beyond recovery (even right here in our backyard of Waterloo Region). Widespread chemical and biological contamination and ecological damage from falling water tables collectively represent a grave threat that may well reach a breaking point sooner than climate change itself.
The Groundwater Project aims to build the human capacity needed to understand groundwater, advocate for its protection, and implement locally-informed solutions. They are working to elevate groundwater science and transform this mostly invisible crisis into one that we are finally equipped, educated, and motivated to solve.
While Waterloo Hydrogeologic provides the tools to solve groundwater problems, it is the tireless work of the Groundwater Project that helps provide the knowledge to ensure these tools are used correctly, ethically, and globally.