Department Water Resources and Drinking Water

Groundwater recharge is a critical but highly variable component of the global freshwater cycle and a key determinant of groundwater resilience to climate change. Recent advances show that recharge responds nonlinearly to infiltration variability, long-term aridity shifts, and surface–subsurface flux interactions across monthly to decadal timescales. This project builds on global recharge datasets and modeling approaches to systematically quantify how groundwater recharge responds to climate variability and change worldwide. By integrating large-scale observational datasets with parsimonious modeling frameworks, the project will assess groundwater sensitivity to short-term extremes (e.g. droughts and wet periods) and long-term climatic trends. A central focus is to identify regions where recharge is most vulnerable to increasing aridity and where groundwater systems are tightly coupled to surface hydrological fluxes. The outcomes improve global understanding of groundwater–climate interactions, enable comparative analyses across hydroclimatic regimes, and provide a scientific basis for forecasting groundwater availability under future climate conditions. Ultimately, the project supports evidence-based groundwater management and climate adaptation strategies at regional to global scales.