Transboundary Aquifers of the World · Mapping for the European Region includes both transboundary aquifers and transboundary groundwater bodies as explained above in Map Compilation
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overlapping aquifers and groundwater bodiesSmall transboundary aquifers / groundwater bodies
small aquifer
overlapping small aquifer/groundwater body
GF exact location/extent of aquifer uncertain
lake
river
small groundwater body
disputed political border
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Labelsundisputed political border
Aquifer/groundwater body labelAB12
Scale 1 : 15 000 000Caucasus
Scale 1 : 10 000 000Central Asia
e f g h i j k
12
34
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For detailed map visit http://tbamap.un-igrac.org.
www.un- .org
ABOUT THIS MAP This map is about Transboundary Aquifers (TBAs) of the world. It shows the state of information presently available on the occurrence and extent of TBAs world-wide. The map provides a global overview of these important shared water resources and intends to encourage further research and assessment thereof. The map is based on the most recent inventory results of many active working groups around the world; details on the procedures for preparing this map are available in the section ‘Map compilation and labelling.’ Inventories and assessment of TBAs across the world, followed by information exchange among states sharing an aquifer are considered prerequisites for appropriate TBA governance. This map aims to contribute to raising awareness on the importance of the governance of shared aquifer resources and to building the much needed global knowledge base. Since its establishment in 2003, IGRAC has been involved in TBA governance activities within the frameworks of the UNECE Transboundary waters assessment, GEF International Waters (IW) Focal Area and the International Shared Aquifer Resources Management (ISARM) initiative led by UNESCO-IHP and IAH.
COLOPHON The mission of the International Groundwater Resources Assessment Centre (IGRAC) is to facilitate and promote global sharing of information and knowledge required for sustainable groundwater resources development and management. As an independent and non-profit centre, IGRAC operates under auspices of United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO). IGRAC is an in-house partner of UNESCO-IHE in Delft, the Netherlands, and receives financial support from the Government of the Netherlands. Visit address Westvest 7, 2611 AX Delft, The Netherlands Phone: +31 15 215 2325 , www.un-igrac.org / www.isarm.org
- UPDATE 2014 - 1 : 50 000 000
THE IMPORTANCE OF GROUNDWATER AND TRANSBOUNDARY AQUIFERS
Groundwater is the most abundant source of freshwater on earth, accounting for approximately 97% of non-frozen fresh water. It is an important natural resource that greatly contributes to human development. Approximately 50% of the world’s population drinks groundwater daily. It is often critical for sustaining rural populations that are located away from surface water and piped infrastructure. With respect to food production, groundwater is estimated to contribute to over 40 percent of the world’s production of irrigated crops. Groundwater sustains ecosystems, maintains base flow of rivers and stabilizes land in areas with easily compressed soils. Aquifers can also buffer impacts resulting from seasonal variability and climate change. However, groundwater does not stop flowing at political borders and huge resources are stored in transboundary aquifers. Therefore, the identification, mapping, assessment and development of governance mechanisms for transboundary aquifers are important tasks for ensuring the sustainability of these resources and peaceful cooperation between countries. There are now 608 identified transboundary aquifers, including 226 transboundary ‘groundwater bodies’ as defined in the European Union Water Framework Directive (EU WFD), underlying almost every nation. The United Nations International Law Commission’s Draft Articles on the Law of Transboundary Aquifers (Draft Articles) define an aquifer as “a permeable water-bearing geological formation underlain by a less permeable layer and the water contained in the saturated zone of the formation.” The Draft Articles further define a transboundary aquifer or a transboundary aquifer system as “an aquifer or aquifer system, parts of which are situated in different States.” The EU WFD defines an aquifer as “a subsurface layer or layers of rock or other geological strata of sufficient porosity and permeability to allow either a significant flow of groundwater or the abstraction of significant quantities of groundwater” and a body of groundwater (a.k.a. groundwater body) as “a distinct volume of groundwater within an aquifer or aquifers.” [Note: Mapping for the European Region includes both transboundary aquifers and transboundary groundwater bodies as explained above in Map Compilation and Labelling]. The number of TBAs has been increasing steadily since the first ‘Transboundary Aquifers of the World Map’ was released in 2009. It is likely that new TBAs will still be identified in the future and that the delineation of existing TBAs may be refined once further studies are conducted.
THE ROLE OF INTERNATIONAL LAW AND AGREEMENTS Governance of aquifers is increasingly important, due to competing users, over abstraction, contamination, and degradation of groundwater recharge areas. Although, many states have national laws and/or policies applicable to groundwater, there are very few agreements - formal or informal - governing transboundary aquifers. The only treaty for the joint management of a transboundary aquifer is the Convention on the protection, utilization, recharge and monitoring of the Franco-Swiss Genevese Aquifer. There are three others aquifers with agreements: the Guaraní Aquifer System [not yet in force] (21S), the Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System [NSAS] (AF63), and the North Western Sahara Aquifer System [NWSAS] (AF69).
In 1966, the International Law Association (ILA), an international non-governmental organisation of legal experts, drafted the Helsinki Rules on the Uses of Waters of International Rivers to serve as guidelines for sharing transboundary waters. Although, future codification efforts were primarily focused on surface water, the ILA also made several efforts to deal with the specific dynamics of groundwater resources in other guidelines such as the Seoul Rules of 1985 and Berlin Rules of 2004. Shortly after the drafting of the Helsinki Rules, the United Nations International Law Committee (ILC), which is officially in charge of the codification of international law, began crafting the United Nations Convention on the Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses (UN Watercourses Convention). In 1997, after 25 years of progressive work, the UN Watercourses Convention included, in a global treaty, rules for sharing transboundary watercourses. The Convention enters into force on August 17, 2014 and applies to any “system of surface waters and groundwaters constituting by virtue of their physical relationship a unitary whole and normally flowing into a common terminus…parts of which are situated in different states.” However, it leaves out of its scope most transboundary aquifers, namely those that do not have a hydrological connection to an international watercourse and do not flow to a common terminus. Yet, it is worth noting that in 1992, the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) included all groundwaters in the scope of their Convention on the Protection and Use of Transboundary Rivers and Lakes. The UNECE Water Convention will be open to global accession by all UN Members States by close of 2014 and presents a complementary legal instrument to the UN Watercourse Convention. In the time immediately following the adoption of the UN Watercourses Convention, there was no global treaty whose scope includes all types of transboundary aquifers. In 2003, the UN ILC, taking into account the previous developments of international water law, began working on the Draft Articles on the Law of Transboundary Aquifers (Draft Articles) and adopted them in 2008. The Draft Articles were then transmitted to the UN General Assembly (UNGA) and in that same year, the UNGA adopted Resolution A/RES/63/124 on the law of transboundary aquifers. The full text of the Draft Articles was included in the Resolution’s annex. The Resolution “[e]ncourages the States concerned to make appropriate bilateral or regional arrangements for the proper management of their transboundary aquifers, taking into account the provisions of these draft articles.” The Resolution of the UNGA is a non-binding text. However, it has moral authority. With this Resolution, states can refer to the Draft Articles in the development of cooperative mechanisms for their transboundary aquifers, as in the case of the Guarani aquifer agreement. Since the adoption of the Resolution, the Draft Articles have undergone two additional rounds of review by the UNGA, with the goal of determining their final form. In 2013, the UNGA adopted a third Resolution (A/RES/68/118) on the “Law of Transboundary Aquifers.” The Resolution again annexes the Draft Articles and “commends to the attention of Governments the draft articles on the law of transboundary aquifers… as guidance for bilateral or regional agreements and arrangements for the proper management of transboundary aquifers.” It also encourages UNESCO’s IHP to continue its contribution by offering further scientific and technical assistance to the States concerned. The topic will be discussed again at the UNGA in 2016.
International law applicable to transboundary aquifers is developing rapidly. With 2014 marking the entry into force of the UN Watercourses Convention, the opening UNECE Water Convention for global accession and with the continued evaluation of the Draft Articles by the UNGA in 2016, there will undoubtedly be advancements within the next few years. These agreements, along with
regional agreements and supranational legislation dealing with groundwater, such as the EU Water Framework Directive (2000) and Groundwater Directive (2006) as well as the Revised SADC Protocol on Shared Watercourses (2000), serve to move legal aspects of groundwater governance forward, in particular governance of transboundary aquifers.
MAP COMPILATION AND LABELLING The map presented, encapsulates information provided by various organisations and projects dealing with transboundary aquifer assessments and/or management at regional and continental scales. IGRAC compiled this map based on information from peer reviewed literature, ISARM studies and information provided by national experts (specific information sources are given in the table below). It is an update of the 2012 ‘Transboundary Aquifers of the World Map’ (IGRAC 2012). The guiding principle in compiling the 2014 map was to stay as close to the information provided by the individual sources as possible, while presenting the information in a form which is appropriate for the chosen scale of the map (1:50,000,000). In a few cases where aquifers coming from different sources were overlapping or not corresponding, delineations with the highest level of certainty were chosen. For countries in the EU, Switzerland and Norway, the global TBA map also displays transboundary Groundwater Bodies (GWB) as adopted by the EU WFD. Within this framework, EU Member States are obliged to delineate groundwater bodies with the goal of achieving ‘good quantitative and qualitative status’ by 2015. Groundwater bodies can be either domestic or transboundary, but they are not necessarily hydrologic units, but rather management units. In many cases, aquifers are subdivided into groundwater bodies while occasionally groundwater bodies may contain multiple aquifers. Since the content of this map is based on most recent inventories from around the world, TBAs located within the EU, Switzerland and Norway, which were included in earlier versions of this map, have now been replaced by transboundary GWBs. Non-EU and EU countries continue to share TBAs, like in earlier versions of the map. Mapping of TBAs and transboundary GWBs is a specific step towards transboundary governance of environmental resources that occurs within a broader, sometimes political, process between countries. The map contains a number of TBAs that may not formally be recognised by all countries. The map also contains approximate delineations for TBAs with very limited hydrogeological information. Solid red borders indicate that the aquifers’ delineation is known and confirmed by all sharing countries. If boundaries are only approximate or are unconfirmed this is indicated by dashed red lines. For some TBAs, virtually no information is available for delineation. In these cases, the TBAs are represented by circular or elliptical shape. The size and position of the shape gives a rough indication of size and position of the TBA. Small TBAs and GWBs (smaller than 6,000 km2) are represented by red squares and blue circles. Small TBAs with unknown extent are represented by red crosses. Various TBAs and GWBs are identified as overlapping or overlaying. For larger TBAs and transboundary GWBs, orange areas represent overlapping TBAs, while overlaps between TBAs and GWBs are highlighted in green. For smaller overlapping TBAs and GWBs (represented by green triangles), this differentiation has not been made.
TBAs and transboundary GWBs are uniquely coded. Due to space limitations, small TBAs and GWBs located within the extent of the enlarged European map are not labelled. At present, there is no internationally adopted or consistent system of labelling transboundary aquifers. New labels were adopted specifically for this map. For the aquifers of the Americas, coding is the same as used by the Organization of American States (OAS). For the other regions, a code was created comprising of two letters to identify the continent or region and a number to identify the individual aquifer. For reference purposes, coding of TBAs and GWBs already included in previous versions of the TBA map were maintained as much as possible, but some exceptions were made. There are instances where an existing TBA is split into two or more new TBAs, and there are cases where multiple TBAs have been merged. In those instances the old aquifer code was deleted from the list and the newly delineated TBAs were added to the bottom of the list, resulting in ‘missing aquifer codes.’ Newly identified aquifers have also been added to the list sequentially by region. The Transboundary Aquifers of the World table also contains a grid code column indicating the grid cell(s) of the Global and European cut out map in which each TBA or GWB is located. For more information on individual TBAs and GWBs please visit http://tbamap.un-igrac.org. Given that knowledge on TBAs is still limited, individuals and organisations (national and international, governmental and non-governmental) are invited to provide comments and suggestions to further improve the Map of Transboundary Aquifers of the World.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We would like to thank the many organizations and experts that provided the data made available on this map as well as Raya Stephan for her contributions to the section on ‘The Role of International Law and Agreements.’
DISCLAIMER Any designation employed and the presentation of material throughout this publication do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of IGRAC, UNESCO, WMO or the Government of the Netherlands concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area, nor of its authorities and sovereignty on its territory and natural resources, and delineation of its frontiers or boundaries. Furthermore, the location and boundaries of several transboundary aquifers have not yet been confirmed by representatives of all countries involved. In such cases, an effort was made to indicate on the map the corresponding provisional status.
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EU162 Ballinamore - Swanlinbar Ireland 172 Fe2b
EU163 Crilly Ireland <100 Fe2b
EU164 Castlederg Ireland 646 Fe2b
EU165 Newtown-Ballyconnell Ireland 439 Fe2b
EU166 Slieve Rushen South Ireland <100 Fe2b
EU167 Slieve Rushen Ireland <100 Fe2b
EU168 Derrylin Ireland <100 Fe2b
EU169 Foyle Gravels Ireland <100 Fe2b
EU170 River Foyle Ireland 135 Fe2ab
EU171 Crom Castle Ireland 140 Fe2b
EU172 Donagh Ireland <100 Fe2b
EU173 Magheraveely Ireland 220 Fe2b
EU174 Cooneen Water Ireland 249 Fe2b
EU175 Clones Ireland 206 Fe2b
EU176 Knockatallon Ireland <100 Fe2b
EU177 Monaghan Town Ireland <100 Fe2b
EU178 Aughnacloy Ireland 1,126 Fe2b
EU179 Keady Ireland 480 Fe2b
EU180 23 Poland 2,939 Ge2b
EU181 Pietryciu Lietuvos kvartero pozeminio Lithuania 29,842 ef2ab
EU182 Louth Ireland 1,980 Fe2b
EU183 1 Poland <100 Gc2b
EU184 3 Poland 936 Gc2b
EU185 67 Poland 1,234 Gcd2b
EU186 88 Poland 804 Gcd2b
EU187 90 Poland 4,070 Gcd2b
EU188 Craie de la vallée de la Deûle France 1,911 Ga2b
EU189 Calcaire Carbonifère de Roubaix-Tourcoing France 866 Ga2b
EU190 Sables du Landénien d'Orchies France 1,048 Ga2b
EU191 Craie du Valenciennois France 964 Ga2b
EU192 89 Poland 191 Gcd2b
EU193 110 Poland 1,426 Gd2b
EU194 128 Poland 1,198 Gd2bc
EU195 Lias supérieur Luxembourg <100 Gb2c
EU196 Lias moyen Luxembourg 198 Gb2c
EU197 Dévonien Luxembourg 1,193 Gb2bc
EU198 Lias inférieur Luxembourg 1,137 Gb2c
EU199 Trias Luxembourg 1,163 Gb2c
EU200 140 Poland 1,056 Gd2bc
EU201 145 Poland <100 Gd2c
EU202 161 Poland 515 Gd2c
EU203 156 Poland 281 Gde2c
EU204 155 Poland 1,132 Gde2c
EU205 154 Poland 2,856 Gde2c
EU206 Medzizrnové podzemné vody kvartérnych náplavov centrálnej časti Podunajskej panvy
4S Grupo Roraima Brazil, Guyana, Venezuela 84,272 DE3
5S Boa Vista-Serra do Tucano-North Savanna Brazil, Guyana 23,895 DE3
6S Zanderij French Guiana, Guyana, Suriname 46,140 E3
7S Coesewijne Guyana, Suriname 28,685 E3
8S A-Sand/B-Sand Guyana, Suriname 28,685 E3
9S Costeiro Brazil, French Guiana 38,250 E34
10S Tulcán-Ipiales Colombia, Ecuador 262 D3
11S Zarumilla Ecuador, Peru 1,411 D4
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SUMMARY AND SOURCES OF TRANSBOUNDARY AQUIFERS OF THE WORLD MAP DATA
Region # TBAs Sources Region Codes
Africa 83 UNESCO/BGR (2004) AF
North Africa -- OSS/UNEP/GEF (2008a), OSS/UNEP/GEF (2008b), IAEA/UNDP/GEF (2007), IEMED/CIDOB (2008)
--
West and Central Africa -- UNESCO/ISARM - West and Central Africa (2011), UNESCO/ISARM (2012)
--
East Africa -- UNESCO/ISARM-IGAD (2010, 2011), Altchenko & Vill-holth (2013), Vasak (2008)