Last week I spoke with Dr. Bernie Kueper. He's a professor at Queen's and in internationally recognized groundwater expert. Half of North Americans get their water from groundwater sources. The the top groundwater problems Dr. Kueper mentioned were:
- Increased water use is draining the groundwater sources faster than they're getting refilled
- Existing sources are getting contaminated by chemicals that are added to foods, cosmetics, fertilizers, etc.
- Finding new sources is difficult
With these problems in mind, useful areas for to research could include:
- Finding ways to reduce water waste
- Finding ways to reduce water contamination
- Finding ways to locate new water sources
He travels a lot, but would be happy to talk to us if he's free some week during our meeting.
In the meantime, a resource he suggested that might be useful for finding water is the gravitational data collected by NASA satellites. The satellites measure the force of gravity all over the surface of the earth, and track changes over time. As the underground water level at a location rises and falls, so does the force of gravity at that location. Dr. Kueper suggested that here may be a way to use that data to find underground water. The data is available at University of Colorado GRACE research
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