Review of MAR studies in Asia

The first bachelor thesis derived from the INOWAS project was written by Anna-Sophie Strues and defended successfully in November 2014. The research focuses on harvesting case studies on managed aquifer recharge (MAR) in Asia. Even though MAR sites are built in abundance by public and private investors in Asia there are comparatively few scientific case studies and up to today there exist no comprehensive overview of MAR sites in Asia. In this work an index for Asia MAR sites was developed based on the European MAR catalogue by the EU project DEMEAU. During research parameters were added when a certain type of information was repeatedly reported in the literature or when deviations of existing fields appeared that could not be converted directly. The assembled data on MAR in Asia was compared to the European MAR catalogue. The main difference between both countries was their motivation for using MAR. Europe wants to preserve its natural resource by not using groundwater for human use which is reflected in river water as main influent source and water quality as primary objective. Asia on the other hand reacts to an already existing problem: overexploitation of groundwater which is shown in the two main objectives: maximise natural storage and physical aquifer management.