User:Transboundary/sandbox

The term Transboundariness applies as a measure of the strategic value of an aquifer that happens to be located at the border between countries.

Aquifer

"When rain falls to the ground, some of it flows along the land surface to streams, rivers or lakes, some moisturizes the ground. Part of this water is used by vegetation; some evaporates and returns to the atmosphere. Part of the water also seeps into the ground, flows through the unsaturated zone and reaches the water table, which is an imaginary surface from where the ground beneath is saturated (see illustration below).

That last one is Groundwater: all water found beneath the ground surface in the saturated zone. Groundwater is contained in what are called ‘aquifers’.

Transboundary aquifer When an aquifer transend international boundaries, the term transboundary aquifer applies.

Transboundariness as a concept Transboundariness is a concept, a measure and an approach first introduced in 2017 by Rosario Sanchez (Sanchez & Eckstein 2017), The relevance of this approach is that the physical features of the aquifers become just additional variables among the broad spectrum of considerations of the transboundary nature of an aquifer: - social (population); - economic (groundwater productivity); - political (as transboundary); - available research or data; - water quality and quantity; - other issues governing the agenda (security, trade, immigration and so on). The discussion changes from the traditional question of “is the aquifer transboundary?” to “how transboundary is the aquifer?”. The socio-economic and political contexts effectively overwhelm the aquifer´s physical features adding its corresponding geostrategic value –its transboundariness. The criteria proposed by this approach attempt to encapsulate and measure all potential variables that play a role in defining the transboundary nature of an aquifer and its multidimensional boundaries.