Project description
Groundwater recharge and climate drivers in the South Pacific
Sustainable groundwater management poses a significant challenge for many Small Island Developing States, where freshwater resources are exceedingly vulnerable to natural and human-induced pressures, and recharge and quality dynamics are often not well constrained. Supported by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the GROTTOS project will help improve the quantitative understanding of recharge and emerging risks to water quality on the South Pacific island of Niue. Addressing knowledge gaps identified by local resource managers, the project will apply an innovative monitoring approach by integrating traditional groundwater assessments with continuous observations and chemical tracing of potential recharge across Niue’s limestone caves. Stalagmite-based climate reconstructions will serve to assess historic recharge variability and extend the globally underrepresented record of South Pacific palaeoclimate.
Objective
Sustainable groundwater management is one of the defining societal challenges under rapid global change. But in many Small Island Developing States (SIDS), effective resource management is complicated by a lack of comprehensive groundwater assessments and an inherent susceptibility to natural and anthropogenic pressures on water quantity and quality. The limited understanding of present-day groundwater dynamics in SIDS is only matched by our insufficient knowledge of past global change in oceanic regions. These combined challenges preclude confident climate predictions and mitigation measures.
To address critical knowledge gaps relevant to local resource managers, and extend the sparse South Pacific palaeoclimate record beyond the instrumental period, my project GROTTOS ('GROundwater and climate Through Time – modern Observations and Stalagmite-based recharge estimates on a raised coral atoll') seeks to refine the quantitative understanding of groundwater recharge and its climate drivers on the South Pacific carbonate island of Niue (ca. 19°03′14″S, 169°55′12″W). Taking advantage of the tropical karst geology, GROTTOS firstly aims to provide a holistic assessment of Niue’s present-day recharge dynamics by the novel integration of conventional groundwater monitoring with observations from soil and caves in the unsaturated zone. Aligned with local priorities, groundwater will further be analysed against international quality standards and for the first time tested for major synthetic pollutants. Finally, we aim to apply a newly developed quantitative geochemical proxy for past cave drip rates to several Holocene Niuean stalagmites. With insights from modern observations, this will shed new light on South Pacific climate variability and its effect on groundwater recharge through time.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
This project's classification has been human-validated.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
This project's classification has been human-validated.
Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)
MAIN PROGRAMME
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Topic(s)
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
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Call for proposal
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Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) HORIZON-MSCA-2024-PF-01
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
72074 Tuebingen
Germany
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