Student Conceptions Of Groundwater

"Sponsored by Excellence in Water Resources Education Task Committee of the Groundwater Council of the Environmental and Water Resources Institute of the American Society of Civil Engineers."

This book will provide a comprehensive discussion of groundwater sustainability, including what it is, how its definition has changed over time, why traditional assessments of it are wrong, how assessments of it are ideally multidisciplinary efforts recognizing that policy is more controlling of outcomes than science, and why achieving it is difficult once pumping exceeds sustainable levels of pumping. The book will provide a nontechnical background of hydrogeology relevant to groundwater sustainability and present several case studies from around the United States and the world. The book has been designed to appeal to academics, students, and practitioners. Academics, particularly those just getting into the subject, will find the book a useful entry in terms of management concepts and political realities of attempting to achieve groundwater sustainability. It will also be useful to academics in that the book will include discussions on the history and development of groundwater sustainability and the practical aspects of aspiring to and achieving sustainable production. Although not a textbook, the book could be used as the basis for teaching a course or as a supplement to a hydrogeology or groundwater management class. Accordingly, the book will include questions and additional reading materials at the end of each chapter. This book will also be useful to practitioners through non-technical explanations of the sciences, discussions of the nuances of defining sustainability in aquifers, and the presentation of case studies where sustainable management has failed and succeeded.

With the growing concern about groundwater resources both with respect to quantity and quality, the need for groundwater modelling tools is increasing. Although there are a number of excellent introductions to the concepts of groundwater flow and pollution transport, the student or practising engineer wishing to develop a model and do practical work on the computer finds that there is still a gap between the understanding of concepts and the ability to handle the actual computations. A great deal of groundwater modelling software for personal computers and microcomputers has appeared recently, but taking these models from the shelf and applying them without a background on their capabilities often leads to disappointment and frustration. This book provides the reader with all necessary details to start modelling on his own. It gives a comprehensive introduction to the major techniques currently used in the modelling of groundwater flow and pollutant transport in groundwater. Both self-contained and comprehensive, it presents a wide variety of methods currently applied in the management, protection, and remediation of groundwater resources, which allows the reader to take the step from understanding the concepts to the ability to handle actual computations. All major techniques are illustrated by a total of 19 sample programs in BASIC which can be modified by the reader to suit his own need. The programs can be run directly on an Apple II+ or compatible personal computer, and with slight modifications, most can be transferred to other microcomputers with BASIC capability and at least 48K of central memory. The necessary modifications for running the programs on an IBM-PC are indicated in the appendix. Students and professionals in the fields of hydrogeology and civil and environmental engineering will find this to be an extremely useful book. Knowledge of the basic concepts of hydrogeology is assumed and, starting from that basis, the book will enable them to understand mathematical groundwater models and write computer programs of their own.

Groundwater Age is the first book of its kind that incorporates and synthesizes the state-of-the-art knowledge about the business of groundwater dating - including historical development, principles, applications, various methods, and likely future progress in the concept. It is a well-organized, advanced, clearly written resource for all the professionals, scientists, graduate students, consultants, and water sector managers who deal with groundwater and who seek a comprehensive treatment of the subject of groundwater age.

This work interrupts the current “consulting students” discourse that positions students as service clients and thus renders more problematic the concept of student voice in ways that it might be sustained as a democratic process. It looks at student voice holistically across realms of classroom practices, higher education, practitioner inquiry and policy formulation. The authors render problematic the “empowerment” rhetoric that is the dominant and insufficient narrative justifying consulting children and young people. They explore the many contradictions and ambiguities associating with recruiting and encouraging them to participate and the varying impacts of different circumstances on the ways in which student voice projects are enacted. They perceive that it is possible for student voice projects to be subverted from both above and below as varying stakeholders with varying purposes struggle to manage and control projects. Importantly, the book reports on research that identifies and highlights conditions for initiating and sustaining student voice and include “beyond school” dimensions that consider young people as “audiences” who can inform community facilities, their development and design as well as undergraduate students in universities. These cases are not reported as celebratory, but rather act as narratives that illuminate the many challenges facing those who chose to work with young people in authentic ways. It both advances methodologies for engaging young people as active agents in the design and interpretation of research that concerns them and offers a critique of those methods that see young people as the objects of research, where the data is mined for purposes that do not recognise that students are the consequential stakeholders with respect to decisions made in their interests.​