Authors / CoAuthors
Dixon-Jain, P. | Norman, R. | Hill, A.R. | Wallace, L. | Fontaine, K. | Stewart, G.
Abstract
Many countries in the Pacific rely heavily on their groundwater resources for drinking water, and for quite a few islands it is the only reliable source of water throughout the year. Changes in rainfall patterns and sea-level rise due to climate change are likely to threaten the availability and quality of groundwater in the future. Despite this threat, there is limited knowledge of the vulnerability of Pacific-Island aquifers to climate change at a regional scale. Currently, the sustainability of groundwater in the South Pacific is understood primarily through specific local-scale assessments of varying detail, with many locations unsurveyed. As the South Pacific is comprised of 1000s of small islands, it is not feasible to individually assess the groundwater resources of each island. Based on their geological makeup, South-Pacific Islands can be broadly classified as carbonate, continental, volcanic or composite (mixture of volcanic and carbonate) types. Previous hydrogeological investigations are generally biased towards carbonate-island types such as coral atolls and raised limestone islands and their associated fresh groundwater resources. However, in many of the South-Pacific Island countries volcanic-rock aquifers are also an important source of freshwater. This study aims to develop a systematic regional-scale typology for the Pacific Islands that considers all island situations, based primarily on hydrogeological characteristics. This will contribute to a hydrogeological framework in order to describe and understand how groundwater vulnerability to climate change differs between different hydrogeological settings and in different parts of the region. This will assist policy makers in the allocation of climate-change funding and monitoring, management and adaptation assistance.
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nonGeographicDataset
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75780
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- External PublicationAbstract
- Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classification (ANZSRC)
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- Earth Sciences
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- Published_Internal
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2013-01-01T00:00:00
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