Conference Purpose and Scope

The long tradition of SWIM conferences reflects the relevance of managing saline groundwater problems around the world, especially in densely populated coastal areas. Many communities and whole nations have to cope with issues such as:

• increased groundwater demand due to economic development and population growth

• over-exploitation of water resources, especially in arid and semi-arid areas

• contamination and quality deterioration of water resources

• characterization of groundwater systems and movement of saline groundwater

• management and prevention of salinization

• natural and man-made environmental change

These challenges require close cooperation between scientists, engineers, water resource managers and policy makers. In this regard SWIM conferences provide a forum bringing together participants from academia, private consulting firms, local, state, and national government agencies, and giving them a possibility to interact in an informal and relaxed environment. Students giving their first presentation have an opportunity to discuss with renowned and well-established researchers and groundwater professionals.
Contributions include both oral and poster presentations. The scope typically encompasses (but is not limited to) the following topics:

• case studies of saltwater intrusion

• hydrogeology of islands and atolls

• submarine groundwater discharge

• geogenic groundwater salinization

• geophysical and geochemical characterization of coastal aquifers

• monitoring and remote sensing

• variable density flow and transport: theory, experiments, analytical and numerical modeling

• coastal zone groundwater management

• impacts of climate change, sea-level rise and socio-economic changes