A special session on “Groundwater Management” has been jointly organized by the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) and the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI), Thailand, at the THA 2022 International Conference “Moving Towards a Sustainable Water and Climate Change Management After COVID-19” on January 27, 2022. The conference’s major objective is to provide a platform for researchers, scientists, practitioners, policymakers and private executives to share and present new advances, research findings, perspectives, and experiences in water management and climate change, new technology, and water management towards SDGs.

The AIT-SEI special sessions’ two halves were chaired by Prof. Ashim Das Gupta, Emeritus Professor, AIT and Dr. Thanapon Piman, Senior Research Fellow, SEI, respectively. The session’s invited speaker, Dr. Surin Worakijthamrong, Director of Groundwater Development Bureau, Department of Groundwater Resources, Thailand, presented on “Innovations for Groundwater Management Towards SDGs in Thailand”. Furthermore, the session included several technical presentations covering topics related to groundwater management of transboundary aquifers, mapping of groundwater resilience under stresses, roles of multi-stakeholders in groundwater management, nature-based solutions for sustainable water management and application of google earth engine for suspended sediment estimation. All the technical presentations were focused on the Lower Mekong Region (LMR).

The joint session of AIT and SEI in the THA 2022 International Conference was one of the outputs from the WEM’s “Strengthening Groundwater Governance in Rapidly Urbanizing Areas of the Lower Mekong Region (GIRA)” project funded by SEI under the SUMERNET 4 All Programme which is funded by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida). The team of the GIRA project during the conference presented on six relevant topics related to sustainable groundwater development and management in the LMR as listed below:

  • Towards Sustainable Groundwater Management of Transboundary Aquifers in the Lower Mekong Region
  • Development of Framework to Evaluate Current State of Groundwater Governance under Urbanization and Climate Change
  • Roles of Multi-stakeholders in Sustainable Groundwater Management towards SDG6: A Case of Khon Kaen, Thailand
  • Sustainable Groundwater Development in Can Tho city, Mekong Delta Vietnam under Climate Change
  • Spatio-temporal Distribution of Groundwater Recharge under Climate Change in the Namngum ++ River Basin
  • Evaluation of Gridded Rainfall Products in the Selected Basins of Lower Mekong

About Conference: THA 2022 International Conference