II Technical Report of progress -Checklist

This Technical Report is a part of the activities realised for the Cooperation Covenant "Formulation of a framework to guide the development of a numerical groundwater model to estimate the sustainable yield of the main sea level aquifer system", agreed between the Research Institute for Geo-­Hydrological Protection (Istituto di Ricerca per la Protezione Idrogeologica) of the Italian National Research Council (Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, CNR), thereinafter CNR IRPI, and the Maltese Sustainable and Water Conservation Unit of Ministry for Energy and Health, thereinafter SEWCU. SEWCU within the Ministry for Energy and Health is currently undertaking the development of Malta's 2nd River Basin Management Plan under the implementation process of the EU's Water Framework Directive. This process will identify a set of measures addressing the qualitative and quantitative status of groundwater, with the aim of ensuring the achievement of good status for the resource. The achievement of good quantitative status is assessed by means of a water balance calculation, which compares inputs and outputs from the groundwater system. The system inputs define the sustainable yield of the particular groundwater system, where for the achievement of good status system outputs must not exceed this sustainable level. The final purpose of the cooperation will be the numerical modelling of the Maltese coastal aquifer system to permit the sustainable management of groundwater resources considering the effects of climate change, including the variability of recharge, sea level and seawater salinity. The process could be utilised to define reliable figures for the safe-­yield from these aquifers and the establishment of annual groundwater abstraction thresholds or optimal discharge schema utilising scientific up-­to-­date methodological approaches.