Beneath the Seafloor: The Ambiguous Status of Offshore Freshened Groundwater
CLIMA Lunch Seminar with Ángeles Jiménez García-Carriazo
Abstract
Offshore freshened groundwater (OFG) refers to bodies of low-salinity water trapped beneath the seabed. It represents a potentially vast but poorly understood freshwater source. However, its status is ambiguous (lying between the law of the sea and the law of freshwater) raising scientific, legal, and management challenges. The presentation will examine whether OFG should be governed under freshwater law - as with international rivers and aquifers - or treated as a marine resource under the law of the sea. The aim is to clarify its status in international law and propose frameworks for sustainable and cooperative management of this hidden resource.
About the speaker
Ángeles Jiménez García-Carriazo holds a Ph.D. in Law, specializing in the Law of the Sea and Public International Law. She is currently a Research Fellow at the University of Cádiz (Spain), where she leads various academic and policy-oriented initiatives on ocean governance. She also serves as Legal Advisor to the Spanish Ministry for Foreign Affairs, and is a member of the Spanish Delegation to the United Nations Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS).
Between 2018 and 2023, she was The Nippon Foundation Lecturer on Global Ocean Governance at the IMO International Maritime Law Institute (IMLI). She has conducted research at institutions such as the University of Jaen (Spain), the University of Nantes (France), and the National Taiwan Ocean University. She is Principal Investigator of two research projects and the Director of the Observatory for Migration and Human Rights of the European University of the Seas Alliance (SEA-EU). Her scholarly output includes a monograph, edited volumes, numerous book chapters, and peer-reviewed articles addressing key areas of the law of the sea: the continental shelf, maritime boundary delimitation, underwater cultural heritage, peaceful settlement of disputes, and human rights at sea.
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