Biography
Marco Petitta, PhD, is Full Professor of Hydrogeology at Sapienza University of Rome, Italy, where he teaches Basic Hydrogeology, Groundwater Hydrodynamic and Applied Hydrogeology. He has supervised 14 PhD students in the last 20 years. He is author of more than 100 papers on international journals and more than 100 articles on national journals and proceedings. After obtaining a PhD in groundwater modelling, his research focuses on groundwater management, interaction between stream and groundwater, human influences on groundwater quantity and quality, remediation of polluted sites, isotope techniques for groundwater studies, the role of groundwater in environmental and ecological studies, and groundwater-seismicity relationships. He coordinated the European Project Horizon2020 KINDRA (2015-2018), he had national responsibility for the EU PRIMA project KARMA (2019-22) on karst aquifers in Mediterranean area and he is currently involved in the EU Horizon Europe project NINFA (2022-26).
A member of IAH since 1997, he was Chairman of the Italian Chapter from 2012 to 2016. In 2015 he was Chair of the 42nd International Congress of IAH, AQUA2015. Between 2016-21 he served as Vice-President of IAH for Western and Central Europe. Since 2021 he is Vice-President for Science and Programme. He was also Coordinator of the Panel of Experts in Hydrogeology of the EFG (European Federation of Geologists) and Member of the Working Group of Groundwater of the European Commission, for the Common Implementation Strategy of Water Directives. He has active international research links with several Universities and Research Centres in Europe and worldwide.
Personal Statement
My previous activities for Western Europe and as chair of the Italian Chapter allowed me to acquire substantial experience of IAH programmes and vision. I had opportunities to meet colleagues from other chapters, especially in Europe, enlarging my views on groundwater issues. During the previous mandate as Vice President for Science and Programme I had the opportunity to better understand the need and the activities of IAH’s Commissions, Networks and Working Groups. I have also updated my skills at international level by participating in several European groups and associations related to EU policy and EU research programmes (e.g. Water4All, GSEU/Eurogeosurvey). Based on these recent experiences, I believe there is room for increased visibility of groundwater issues at the international scale, after the positive outputs of the WWD in 2022, dedicated to “Making Groundwater Visible”. I am ready to coordinate the additional efforts required for the IAH community to meet the new 21st century challenges. e.g. climate change effects on groundwater resources, water-food-climate-energy nexus, implementation of SDGs and policy and governance of water and groundwater. My intention is to continue to promote networking of National Chapters at the world-wide level, I will try to improve the visibility of IAH promoting interaction among Commissions and Networks, raising awareness on the importance of groundwater not only in the technical and scientific community, but for stakeholders and the general public too.
