Between 14th and 16th June 2023, our group participated to the 6th edition of FLOWPATH took place in Malta. FLOWPATH is the bi-annual National Meeting on Hydrogeology organized by the Italian chapter of the International Association of Hydrogeologists (IAH). This edition was organized in Malta thanks to the collaboration of Maltese members of the association.
Hydrogeo Modeling group’s contributions to the conference
The Hydrogeo Modeling group participated with an oral presentation and a poster, named respectively “Enhanced Thermal Response Test Intepretation through MODFLOW-USG and PEST_HP” (Authors: Sara Barbieri, Matteo Antelmi, Luca Alberti) and “Characterizing the current Italian drought in different water domains: are groundwater resources more resilient?” (Authors: Paolo Colombo, Pietro Mazzon, Luca Alberti). The first concentrated on the modeling of a thermal responce test following the emerging need of monitoring and data gathering on the growing geothermal resource usage. The latter provided an analysis on the different responses between surface and groundwater sources during meteorological drought, exploring the groundwater resilience and response in these periods. Both contributions received appreciation and feedbacks on how to go forward in the respective research.
An overview on conference contributions
The conference was full of interesting presentations and posters. The topics ranged from climate change related impacts on groundwater to monitoring springs to remediation of contaminated sites and geothermal application of groundwaters. From all the contributions, “Water management in times of climate change – do we have a water problem in Germany?” from Prof. Cristoph Schuth, “Climate change and irrigation practices dissociate reduction of N fertilizers from the improvement of water chemistry in groundwater dependent rivers” from Edoardo Severini and “Impact of drought on the Piedmont plain (NW, Italy) water resources: current status and predictions in the context of climate change” from Susanna Mancini have resulted of great interest for our fields of research.
A fun time as well!
Apart from gathering insights on the frontiers of Italian’s groundwater research, the last day of the conference was dedicated to field trips. We divided across different trips, from visiting the groundwater monitoring network of Malta, to discover the geological characteristics of the island and enter in a dissalination plant. We then reunited at the visit of the Ħaġar Qim temple.
