NGWA Darcy Lecture Series presented by Kamini Singha

Earth’s “critical zone” — the zone of the planet from treetops to base of groundwater — is critical because it is a sensitive region, open to impacts from human activities, while providing water necessary for human consumption and food production. Quantifying water movement in the subsurface is critical to predicting how water-driven critical zone processes respond to changes in climate and human perturbation of the natural system. While shallow soils and aboveground parts of the critical zone can be easy to instrument and explore, the deeper parts of the critical zone — through the soils and into rock — are harder to access, leaving many open questions about the role of water in this environment.