Groundwater Hydrology, Contamination, and Sustainable Development

Dear Colleagues,

The need for all humans to have access to clean water is paramount and forms a critical aspect of daily life. This was enshrined as part of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In view of this, researchers have been monitoring and assessing groundwater occurrence and distribution, groundwater quality and groundwater vulnerability, and developing innovative ways of solving groundwater pollution challenges. Several technological- and mathematical-based techniques can be used to conduct groundwater research. Intelligent systems are also reliable tools that can be employed. For decades, various geospatial (remote sensing and geographic information system (GIS)), artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), statistical, and indexical methods have been proposed and applied by numerous researchers in the field of hydrogeology and environmental water quality. Most of the previous research outputs uphold that these methods have been very useful in interpreting groundwater hydrology and groundwater quality data. The application of integrated methods for groundwater hydrology, environmental contamination and water quality research is of the utmost significance when actualizing many environmental sustainability goals.

This Special Issue, “Groundwater Hydrology, Contamination, and Sustainable Development”, aims to provide a collection of innovative, original research papers, case studies, and review papers that addresses a wide-range of issues on the hydrology, contamination, and sustainable development of groundwater. This Special Issue will also provide insights into the sustainable development of rural and urban water environments. Up-to-date recent developments on the topic and perspectives for future research will be covered.

A wide-range of article types related to the listed themes will be considered in this Special Issue. The research themes covered in this Special Issue include, but are not limited to:

1. Environmental groundwater quality issues in developing/developed and arid/semiarid regions.
2. Groundwater mapping for sustainable water resources’ development.
3. Integration of intelligent systems for modelling groundwater quality and pollutant transport.
4. Application of AI and ML techniques in modelling emerging contaminants in groundwater.
5. Application of remote sensing and GIS for sustainable groundwater development and management.
6. Development of hybrid machine learning algorithms for water quality assessment.
7. Novel statistical techniques for drinking, industrial, and irrigation water quality assessment.
8. Climate change and its impacts on groundwater hydrology and quality.
9. Impact of COVID-19 on groundwater hydrology and quality.
10. Hydrometeorological parameters as they affect groundwater occurrence and distribution.
11. Characterization of aquifer parameters for sustainable groundwater development.
12. Hydrogeochemical investigation of groundwater resources as relates to sustainable development.
13. Impact of anthropogenic activities on groundwater hydrology and quality.
14. Water scarcity in developing regions and insights for sustainable groundwater development.
15. Integrated modelling techniques applied for sustainable groundwater management.
16. Groundwater interconnections with surface hydrology.
17. Hydrological cycle, hydrogeological systems and natural water protection.
18. Emerging contaminants as threats to sustainable groundwater development.
19. Groundwater vulnerability mapping for sustainable rural/urban development.
20. Groundwater pollution and source apportionment for sustainable mitigation planning.
21. Human health risk assessment of contaminated groundwater.
22. Novel groundwater pollution indexing for sustainable groundwater management.
23. Remediation and treatment methods for contaminated/polluted groundwater systems.

Dr. Johnbosco C. Egbueri
Prof. Dr. Peiyue Li
Prof. Dr. Antonije Onjia
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.