ABSTRACT
Groundwater represents the major, even sometimes unique source of freshwater in many parts of the world. A recent UN report (UN World Water Development Report, 2012) stated that groundwater resources accounts for nearly half of all drinking water worldwide. Moreover, due to climate changes effects and the reduced availability of surface water, people are increasingly turning to groundwater for agricultural, industrial, and drinking water needs. However, due to these increasing pressures and demands linked to population growth and economic development, groundwater is not being used sustainably, according to needs and demands. In many countries, to respond to growing demands, groundwater is overexploited, leading to critically low levels in aquifers. Proper and sustainable management of aquifers is a key environmental challenge of this century. Sustainable management of groundwater involves decision making, to achieve goals, under certain constraints. These decisions require prior comprehensive knowledge of the systems to be able to anticipate their responses to planned actions. In the real world, knowledge and understanding of hydrogeological systems are not obvious to the extent that these systems are often very complex and heterogeneous. Water resources managers are faced with disparate and fragmented information about the underlying geology water balance, climate change impact, etc. of such complex systems, which results in risky decision making processes.
