Over the next five years, Bierkens’ ERC project will try to find an answer to the seemingly simple but often avoided question: How much groundwater is there, and how long will it last?

We need groundwater for, among other things, our water and food supply. Across the globe, however, groundwater reserves are being depleted due to explosive population growth and economic development.

“With this grant we can really make a giant step in understanding the problem of worldwide groundwater depletion. It allows us to globally map the volumes of extractable fresh groundwater resources and define ecologically and economically sustainable pathways of future groundwater development.”