This book examines groundwater vulnerability through the interconnected lenses of sustainability and resilience, offering a comprehensive account of emerging approaches to groundwater assessment, protection, management, and long-term aquifer sustainability. It explores the scientific principles, modelling frameworks, geospatial techniques, and decision-support tools that underpin vulnerability analysis while addressing the increasing pressures associated with urbanization, industrialization, agricultural expansion, salinization, over-abstraction, and climate change. The volume highlights how traditional, modern, and advanced data-driven techniques can be integrated to design adaptive strategies for sustainable aquifer management.

Organized into five parts and 17 chapters, the book begins with an introductory chapter that frames groundwater vulnerability assessment and sustainable aquifer management as interconnected scientific, environmental, and policy challenges. The second part presents methodological foundations and review-based perspectives, covering index-based, overlay, process-based, simulation, geospatial, and integrated assessment approaches. The third part provides regional applications and case studies from diverse hydrogeological settings, including Egypt, Algeria, India, and Serbia, addressing agricultural pressure, urbanization, industrialization, coastal salinization, tidal effects, and groundwater-resource planning.

The fourth part focuses on climate change, governance, mitigation, and sustainable management frameworks. It examines bioremediation, risk management, real-time monitoring, managed aquifer recharge, institutional challenges, and adaptive responses to aquifer degradation, including groundwater vulnerability in a rapidly growing Asian megacity. The fifth part presents advanced technologies, geospatial techniques, and artificial-intelligence applications, demonstrating how machine learning, remote sensing, pore-throat analysis, MICMAC modelling, explainable AI, and hybrid data-driven approaches are transforming groundwater vulnerability assessment.

Featuring research and applications from groundwater-stressed regions across Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Mediterranean–MENA region, the chapters integrate field-based evidence, modelling advances, policy perspectives, and emerging technologies to bridge scientific understanding with practical solutions for groundwater protection and management. This volume is an essential resource for hydrogeologists, environmental scientists, water-resource engineers, researchers, postgraduate students, groundwater managers, and policymakers seeking resilient and data-driven approaches to groundwater sustainability in a changing climate.

Dr. Shakir Ali (PhD, University of Delhi), popularly known as “Dr. Khan” in academic and research circles, is a hydrogeologist and environmental researcher specializing in groundwater contaminants, hydrogeochemistry, environmental isotopes, and groundwater modelling. His interdisciplinary research also encompasses environmental anthropology and Himalayan studies, particularly community knowledge systems, pastoralism, and water resource practices in the Western Himachal Himalayas. He is currently affiliated with the Instituto de Geología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. He previously served as an Assistant Professor at Himachal Pradesh University. He earned his master’s degree in Hydrogeology from the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa. Dr. Shakir has published more than 50 research articles in international peer-reviewed journals and has edited seven books with Springer, including volumes in leading HEC-recognized series. He serves as a reviewer for numerous international journals published by Elsevier and Springer and has reviewed more than 100 scientific manuscripts. His research and academic contributions have received more than 1,650 citations on Google Scholar.

Ahmed M. Saqr is an assistant professor at Mansoura University, Egypt, with over a decade of teaching and research experience in water resources engineering. He received a B.Sc. with honors in civil engineering and an M.Sc. in hydraulics and water resources engineering from Mansoura University, Egypt, in 2012 and 2016, respectively. He got his Ph.D. in 2023 from E-JUST in Environmental Engineering through an exchange program with the Institute of Science Tokyo, formerly Tokyo Tech, Tokyo, Japan. He served as a visiting lecturer and researcher at Cologne University of Applied Sciences (TH Köln), Cologne, Germany, from October 2025 to December 2025. Dr. Saqr's research interests include groundwater hydrology, water resources management, artificial intelligence applications, multi-criteria decision making, and sustainability assessment. He has 60+ publications, an H-index of 20+, and 1250+ Google Scholar citations to date. Dr. Saqr has received multiple recognition awards, including the best research paper from the International Association for Hydro-Environment Engineering and Research. Additionally, he has served as a peer reviewer/editor for prestigious journals and participated in several international conferences and workshops. He is also an active member of multiple engineering associations and committees, contributing significantly to research and the academic community.