Groundwater and Climate

Pollution on parched soil Source: prudkov/Fotolia

Climate change affects groundwater recharge, its inflow to lakes and rivers, and storage in aquifers, which is reflected in the groundwater level in the well. Groundwater is fundamentally regarded a drought-resistant resource, because groundwater is only slowly affected by climate change and climatic fluctuations. In contrast, water levels in rivers and lakes reflect the effects of drought and flooding already after a very short time.

Deep and confined aquifers react relatively insensitive to periods of drought. They thus have a great potential to buffer the effects of drought and play a substantial role for the water security of households, agriculture and industry. This buffering effect is considerably less distinctive in shallow aquifers.