Two school soccer teams in Harare, Zimbabwe faced up to each other, proudly wearing IAH-badged World Water Day T-shirts, taking the message of “Groundwater – making the invisible visible” to their opponents and spectators. In Tanzania, where local media plays a crucial role in delivering credible and helpful information to people, we used community radio to inform people in villages about the importance of protecting groundwater: “If people in the community can have a better understanding, they will all know how to look after their precious source of water”. Elomgreenie and Yali Network, Nigeria, made the invisible visible at a school in Ondo State, Nigeria, on World Water Day, with the message that sinking too many boreholes and misusing water in a community can attract severe consequences.
Amongst other WWD 2022 events, IAH Australia held a competition for schoolchildren to produce a piece of groundwater-related artwork; and IAH’s President and the Asia Vice President appeared on ‘The Groundwater Talk Show’, which was televised from Jeju, Korea.
Our annual congress, organised by our colleagues in Wuhan, China in September, was held online and its plenary sessions were opened to a worldwide audience. Thousands of people joined in to hear about “Groundwater Sustainability and Poverty Reduction.” In Paris, IAH’s conference ‘Groundwater, Key to the Sustainable Development Goals’ organised by our French National Chapter and held at the Sorbonne University, highlighted the relationship between groundwater, the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals and all stakeholders.
IAH members organised and supported other conferences and webinars across the world: Afghanistan, Argentina, Australia, Denmark, Italy, Netherlands, Slovenia, Spain, South Africa, USA, and we had a big presence at World Water Week in Stockholm. Our Early Career Hydrogeologists Network participated in the continuing series of webinars presented by young hydrogeologists, which aim to increase the visibility and impact of their contribution to science.