The quality of groundwater is generally good, which means it can be used safely and affordably, without requiring advanced levels of treatment. Groundwater is often the most cost-effectiveway of providing a secure supply of water to rural villages.

Certain regions, such as Saharan Africa and the Middle East for example, hold substantial quantities of non-renewable groundwater supplies that can be extracted in order to maintain water security. However, consideration for future generations and for the economic, financial and environmental aspects of storage depletion should not be overlooked.

In Sub-Saharan Africa, the opportunities offered by the vast aquifers remain largely underexploited. Only 3% of farmland is equipped for irrigation, and only 5% of that area uses groundwater, compared to 59% and 57% respectively in North America and South Asia.

As the report points out, this low use is not due to a lack of renewable groundwater (which is often abundant), but rather by a lack of investments in infrastructure, institutions, trained professionals and knowledge of the resource. The development of groundwater could act as a catalyst for economic growth by increasing the extent of irrigated areas and therefore improving agricultural yields and crop diversity.

In terms of climate change adaptation, the capacity of aquifer systems to store seasonal or episodic surface water surpluses can be exploited to improve year-round freshwater availability, as aquifers incur substantially lower evaporative losses than surface reservoirs. For example, including groundwater storage and abstraction as part of urban water supply planning would add security and flexibility in cases of seasonal variation.