Many ecological systems owe their existence to groundwater and its temperature and chemistry, and can be damaged if groundwater flow or its properties are changed by anthropogenic or natural processes. The ecological systems may be the terrestrial ecological systems we see every day, the sea-floor ecological systems upon which the health of the oceans depends, or the subsurface ecological systems that maintain the groundwater that sustains so many people. To address the resulting issues, this conference brings together scientists from groundwater and ecological disciplines.

The disciplines include, but are not limited to, hydrology, ecology, eco-technology, biology, chemistry, geochemistry, environmental biogeochemistry, and subsurface microbiology. The unifying theme is the importance of groundwater and(or) groundwater/surface water and hyporheic zone interaction to the ecological systems and processes of concern.

The goals of the conference are (1) for interactions between groundwater and ecology to be better understood, measured, simulated, and managed, and (2) to improve the technological basis for policy decisions for issues such as reconstruction of ecologically valuable environments and the use of water resources in these environments.