Online workshop on assessment of MAR in Latin America and lessons learned

The team of the DIGIRES project organised the first workshop in Brazil between 27-28 January 2021. Due to COVID-19 pandemic, the workshop was organised online with participation of partners from Technische Universität Dresden (Germany), Université de Mons (Belgium), Universidade Federal de Pernambuco and Universidade Federal da Paraíba (Brazil).

The workshop agenda included two main sessions. On the first day, the workshop was kicked-off by a welcome address and a short introduction to the DIGIRES project offered by Catalin Stefan, the coordinator of the project, followed by a presentation of Lucilla Fernandez about water-related challenges and socio-hydrological conditions in Recife Metropolitan Area, Brazil. The two presentations continued with a moderated discussion about general potential of managed aquifer recharge to address water-related challenges in Brazil.

The second day of the workshop was dedicated to digital solutions for water management. Catalin Stefan presented the web-based groundwater modelling platform INOWAS (www.inowas.com), a collection of free simulation tools developed at TU Dresden. The platform was used in the DIGIRES project to simulate the groundwater flow conditions in Recife and Antoine Scohier presented the preliminary results of the groundwater modelling of the Boa Viagem aquifer in Recife, Brazil. The workshop continued with further discussions about the use of numerical models to simulate the impacts of managed aquifer recharge in Recife, as well as the complexity of the aquifer systems and associated modelling challenges.