Management of artificial feeding aquifers-MARS. Opportunity and necessity

The recent international and the national studies draw the attention on the fact that at present, one of the global challenges of the human kind consists of in depth knowledge of water resources, identification of pollution sources for aquifers and monitoring and exploitation of existing water sources. This is also valid for our country. Although the global water resources of Romania are theoretically sufficient to cover the needs, in reality resources are spread unequally over the river basins, five out of eleven, facing the water availability stress. Moreover, southern Romania is faced with the desertification phenomena, the climate scenarios foreseeing an annual decrease of precipitation with 4-12 % up to 5-25 % during summer all correlated with a 10-20 % decrease in surface waters flows. The historical experience in Romania using recharge systems as well as recent international developments were the basis for the research conducted by a Dutch – Romanian team of experts under the Partner for Water project MARS (Managed Aquifer Recharge and Storage). The local analysis and the intensive knowledge exchange performed during the project revived the attention for aquifer recharge advantages and usefulness in the local context. The artificial aquifer recharge is a tool tobe taken into account for improving Romania's capacity to anticipate, prevent and respond to extreme natural and man‐made emergencies as well as to increasing Romania's adaptation capacity and resilience to the negative consequences. International and national exemples show that artificial aquifer recharge could be succesfully used for adaptation to climate change in particular to cope with the increased incidence of extreme heat, drought and flooding events. MARS can be seen as a standalone technique useful for water supply operators or water managers in specific local conditions but also best modern application is realized if imbedded in a regional integrated planning procedure.