Abstract
In recent years, groundwater systems have finally been seen as true ecosystems, and not only their enormous value as a resource has been appreciated, but also their relative susceptibility to contamination, which increases the need to learn more about its function and resilience capacity. However, there are several gaps in knowledge and a lot of uncertainty for what is important in decision-making in water and ecosystems connections and management programmes. The difficult accessibility has long challenged the evaluation and development of scientific theories and how to advance in the understanding of their functioning. In general, they are not easy to perceive; however, in recent years, it has been found that they can contain high diversity of living forms with particular adaptive characteristics that maintain water quality and particular ecological functions providing numerous services to humanity. Due to the increase of natural resources demands and the intensive and unplanned land use in the last years, which has led to environmental degradation and diverse social conflicts, studies on groundwater and ecosystems, or the ecology of groundwater, are gaining momentum. Thus, holistic perspectives are encouraged in order to properly understand these connections, their functional roles and visualize proper management perspectives under different scenarios of global changes.
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Acknowledgements
I am grateful to Dr. José Joel Carrillo Rivera, who is responsible for my growing interest in the connections between groundwater and ecosystems. I would also like to thank to some anonymous members of the IAH Mexican chapter, for also contributing with good advices from the hydrogeology to the ecology field. Finally, I thank the Biodiversity and Conservation Research Centre of the Autonomous University of Morelos, for giving me the necessary space to spread this knowledge.
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Wehncke, E.V. (2021). What is the Way Forward to Protect the Ecological Values of Groundwater?. In: Abrunhosa, M., Chambel, A., Peppoloni, S., Chaminé, H.I. (eds) Advances in Geoethics and Groundwater Management : Theory and Practice for a Sustainable Development. Advances in Science, Technology & Innovation. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-59320-9_98
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