South Korea moves to lead global groundwater technology standards

The National Institute of Environmental Research, an agency under the Ministry of Climate, Environment and Energy, said Tuesday it will hold an online technical forum for ISO full member nations to encourage participation in a vote on establishing a groundwater technical committee.

The institute has been working to advance international standardization of domestic technologies — including groundwater storage dams, artificial recharge systems and groundwater prediction models — to ensure stable groundwater use and management in the face of climate change.

Serving as secretariat of the ISO groundwater subcommittee, the institute is pushing to upgrade the existing subcommittee to a full technical committee to better respond to growing demand for climate change adaptation standards.

If the proposed groundwater technical committee is established, South Korea expects to raise the international profile of its water resource management technologies and take a leading role in shaping global standards.

The institute submitted a proposal to establish the groundwater technical committee last November, and a vote among all full member nations is currently underway. The vote closes Sept. 29.