Tapping undersea freshwater resources for drinking water.

It sounds almost paradoxical: although the oceans cover more than two-thirds of our planet, supplying drinking water could become problematic in many regions in the near future. This is because seawater is salty and therefore undrinkable, and treatment via desalination plants is complex and expensive. However, it has been known for some years now that there are also freshwater reservoirs near the coast below the seabed, some of which are fed by terrestrial sources and which have not been studied to a great extent so far.

The global volume of offshore groundwater resources known to date is estimated at one million cubic kilometers. This is about twice the volume of the Black Sea and about five percent of the estimated global groundwater volume in the upper two kilometers of the continental crust. The deposits are mainly located near the coast and were formed mostly during periods of particularly low sea level in the last 2.5 million years.

GEOMAR is developing and integrating new, innovative methods to reliably find and map freshwater below the seabed.

(Header: Thore Sager/GEOMAR)