Well-D

[Image above: Estimated illegal well detection in the Segura River Basin, Spain]

  Problem 

Groundwater is the world's most critical hidden resource. It supplies nearly half of all drinking water globally and a quarter of all irrigation water, yet it is invisible, hard to monitor, and increasingly exploited to exhaustion. Population growth, agricultural expansion, and climate-driven droughts are pushing demand far beyond what natural recharge cycles can sustain. In the most stressed regions, extraction already exceeds three to four times the sustainable rate.

Two forces are driving the crisis: 

• The first is short-term thinking: infrastructure developers and local operators extract water for immediate economic gain, treating aquifers as inexhaustible. 
• The second is invisibility: a substantial share of extraction happens through illegal, unpermitted wells that operate entirely outside any regulatory framework. These rogue access points compound an already critical imbalance, and they have historically been proven to be quite difficult to detect.

The core problem is one of information. The central governmental organisations are interested in tackling the problem due to the looming collapse of the aquifers as well as already established fines by the EU. However, current detection methods rely almost entirely on manual, on-the-ground reporting, which is a slow, resource-intensive process that creates strong incentives for inaction, particularly at the local government level. Even where central authorities recognise the scale of the crisis and its long-term consequences, enforcement is difficult to guarantee. Illegal water extraction is punishable with €10,000 - €14,000 fines and 2-5 years of prison time, however it is not prosecuted often. The large number of illegal wells makes it difficult to tackle the problem using the traditional methods.

The window to act is narrowing: if aquifer overexploitation ends in collapse, the consequences will be effectively irreversible on human timescales. What's needed is a scalable, low-cost method to detect and monitor groundwater extraction points to enforce reductions in groundwater extraction rates around the world. And this is where Well-D can step in to locate wells and report them to central government authorities, leading to reductions in costs and required manpower without having to rely on local government agencies. Even though the central governmental organisations are interested in tackling the problem due to the looming collapse of the aquifers as well as already established fines by the EU.

 Demo Case: Illegal Wells Extract Significant Amounts of Groundwater, Leading to Spain's Severe Water Crisis

Spain faces a severe water crisis driven by over 1 million illegal wells. As droughts worsen, these wells irrigate agricultural land, deplete aquifers, and threaten protected ecosystems like the Doñana National Park and the Segura river basin. These unauthorised wells account for significant groundwater extraction, with studies indicating that 25% of all wells are illegal and contributing to 45% of total water pumped in some areas , prompting EU intervention. 

Although the Spanish central government has been interested in tackling this problem for some decades, no effective solutions have yet been found. The ideas of alternative solutions, like replacing the excess aquifer depletion with desalinated water from the Mediterranean, have not yielded results due to the resulting high water costs as well as political pushback. Meanwhile, more and more wells are being illegally drilled to feed the ever-growing agricultural business in the Segura basin, amounting to a market of €3B/year.

Well-D currently focuses on illegal well detection in the Segura River Basin. Here, the share of illegal water extraction may account for as much as 45% of all ground water extraction. Illegal wells are drilled without the knowledge of the regulatory bodies, making the process of monitoring the aquifer depletion levels more difficult and therefore worsening the consequences of extracting too much groundwater.  

While this concept currently focuses on Spain, it can be expanded to other countries facing similar issues to help fight against destruction to natural waterways, water contamination and biodiversity loss on a global scale. 

 Our Solution to the Demo Case

By using Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 data, we can track the subsidence change, watershed and vegetation (irrigated farmland) in Spain and compare estimated farmland locations with suspected well extraction sites against the Spanish log of legal well locations. 

The Spanish government relies on reports from local municipalities about illegal water extraction. However, local municipalities often are not aware of these well locations, do not have the resources to investigate or are being bribed to keep quiet. To aid in the detection of illegal groundwater extraction, this link can be bypassed by directly providing the Spanish government with estimated sites of illegal extraction.

 Our Product

Well-D provides an easy-to-use dashboard where estimated illegal well sites can be visualised. 

This dashboard will provide the user with:

• Subsidence velocity (mm/year)
• Time-series irrigation probability
• Illegal well location probability
• Legal well database

The Well-D dashboard provides both investigation and monitoring services. Investigation pricing is a one-off fee to obtain up-to-date data of a desired area. This pricing will be scaled with the area of interest, as the processing power also scales with the area of interest. Furthermore, a monitoring service is also available where the customer can opt for a monthly monitoring subscription where the user will be notified about new well locations in real-time. 

Further developments include but are not limited to:

• Time-series slider to investigate change in area over time
• Real-time notifications of new well locations 
• Investigation priority determined by rate-of-extraction and aquifer depletion

During this Hackathon, we will focus on the illegal well locations within the Segura Water Basin, a home to many farmlands in South-Eastern Spain. In the hope of reducing water contamination and aquifer collapse risk, we will demo our use case to show proof-of-concept of illegal well detection through validation with known legal well locations using the Well-D Dashboard. This dashboard can be accessed here: https://well-d-demo-dashboard.streamlit.app/

 Business Case

Customer Persona: 

Customer Profiles: 

Three main customers were identified: Central governments, contractors and NGOs & surveyors. Below the customer profiles are displayed indicating their potential interest and need for our product. 

Governments

Consultancies:

NGOs & Surveyors

  Market: Irrigation Water Extraction Monitoring in Spain (Segura Basin)

This inital application of the Well-D software focuses on monitoring irrigation water extraction in Spain’s agricultural regions, particularly the water-stressed Segura Basin.  A key issue is illegal groundwater extraction, with an estimated 18,000 illegal wells being drilled annually across Spain. This creates a persistent need for monitoring and enforcement of water usage.

Market Drivers

Demand is driven by:

• Severe and growing groundwater depletion
• Expansion of water-stressed agricultural regions
• Increasing regulatory pressure and enforcement needs
• Continuous emergence of illegal wells requiring detection

This is a long-term, recurring monitoring market rather than a one-off solution market.

Competition & Market Access

Below is our list of competitors and a comparison between the services they provide vs Well-D: 

Key barrier to entry is regulatory access:

• Requires cooperation with authorities such as SEPRONA and regional water agencies
• Procurement is government-led and relationship-driven
• Local presence is important for pilot deployment and trust-building

Internal Readiness

Strengths:

• Access to relevant water infrastructure expertise
• Good domain understanding of groundwater and agricultural systems

Requirements:

• Funding for large-scale land and data analysis
• Strong institutional partnerships for deployment
• Ability to translate knowledge into scalable monitoring capability

Potential Future Application: Drinking Water Extraction & Informal Tanker Water Markets (TWM)

This future application is geared towards drinking water extraction in arid regions and informal Tanker Water Markets (TWM), which supply households without reliable piped water.

Globally, around 951 million people experience intermittent water supply, driving dependence on tanker-based delivery systems. In countries like Jordan, unregulated water sales are estimated at 10.7x official licensed supply, showing the scale of informal activity.

Future Market Size & Growth

This is a structurally growing market driven by water scarcity and climate change:

• Household reliance on tanker water expected to grow 2.6x by 2050
• In Jordan, TWMs generate around $176M/year, exceeding revenues of public water suppliers despite covering only ~15% of demand
• Growth is tied to slow infrastructure expansion and expensive alternatives like desalination

Future competition & Market Access

Competitors:

• E-Leaf and similar platforms, mainly focused on agricultural water accounting rather than urban drinking water systems

Regulatory environment:

• Highly complex and politically sensitive
• Many operations exist in legal grey areas or are loosely regulated
• Likely requires redefining and formalizing informal extraction and distribution systems

Market entry:

• Strong dependence on government relationships and trusted local partners
• Adoption is likely top-down through utilities, municipalities, or regulators

Internal Readiness

Financial needs:

• Funding for system development and integration into public water management efforts

Network:

• Currently no established local or institutional contacts in target regions

Capability:

• Early-stage understanding based on research and literature
• Limited operational experience in urban water systems and informal markets

  Revenue Model

The model will include an initial investigation fee and subscription for monitoring. Pricing will be scaled with the area of interest, as the processing power also scales with the area of interest.

Cost per illegal well found using traditional methods:

Why This is Important

• Servicio de Protección de la Naturaleza (SEPRONA) is a specialised unit of the national law enforcement the Guardia Civil. SEPRONA is in charge of ground-level inspection of illegal wells.
• In total there are approximately 2000 SEPRONA officers in Spain. According to the annual report of the Guardia Civil, approximately 5% of the workload of SEPRONA is related to water. 
• A SEPRONA operation that ran from October 2024 to September 2025 uncovered 941 illegal wells, boreholes and ponds. Using these figures and an estimated SEPRONA officer salary of €35,000 - €55,000, an approximation for manpower cost for detection per illegal well can be made.

Monetary Benefit of our Product

• The JúcarVinalopó transfer project to refill an overexploited aquifer costing €231.5 million. [WWF 2006]
• The Ebro transfer (later cancelled) was going to give water to areas where there are thousands of hectares of illegally irrigated land costing approximately €380 million. [WWF 2006]
• Spain is investing approximately €21 billion in the years 2022-2027 to address water management failures.
• The collapse of the aquifers would essentially stop the €3B/year Spanish agricultural business in several large areas.

🛰️Methodology: The Technical Details

Well-D combines multiple spatially detectable markers to infer the spatial probability of unregistered wells over large, logistically challenging areas. 

• These detectable markers are direct geological response, secondary biomarkers, and physical/political indicators. These include Sentinel-1–derived subsidence measurements used to quantify areas of potential aquifer exploitation. 
• They also include publicly available datasets on legal well infrastructure and water bodies, which are combined with physical geospatial modelling to evaluate areas supplied through legal water sources. 
• In addition, Sentinel-2–derived biophysical indicators are combined with WAPOR atmospheric water balance data to distinguish between irrigated and non-irrigated fields. These biomarkers are supported by a Multilayer Perceptron (MLP) land classification, specialised for our case study. 
• The Segura River Basin was selected as a demonstration area, due to its extensive illegal well count, dense public information availability, and large coverage area. Initial results showed promising qualitative indicators of wells not registered on national databases, confirmed with aerial photography. 

This methodology demonstrated fast scalability over a short timescale at high resolution (40,000km area covered over a singular weekend). Datasets will be uploaded to the ODL in due course. 

  Well-D Team

The Well-D team are passionate about finding innovative solutions to tackle water-related problems using Earth Observation. They joined the hackathon to expand their knowledge on business development and to learn how to create technical solutions to meaningful problems.

• Lauren - MSc Aerospace Engineering student at TU Delft
  • Backend developer
• Hubert - MSc Aerospace Engineering student at TU Delft
  • Frontend developer & business analysist
  • Former theoretical experience in applied project management
• Alex - BSc in Applied Earth Sciences at TU Delft
  • EO tech lead
• Evy - MSc Biomedical Engineering at TU Delft
  • Business analysist & market strategist
  • Former experience in business development

 References

1. [1] UN-WaterUN-Water. (2022). UN World Water Development Report 2022: Groundwater—Making the invisible visible. https://www.unwater.org/news/un-world-water-development-report-2022-%E2%80%98groundwater-making-invisible-visible%E2%80%99
2. [2] Anadolu AgencyAnadolu Agency. (2021). Illegal irrigation threatens Spain’s biodiversity, water resources: Study. https://www.aa.com.tr/en/environment/illegal-irrigation-threatens-spain-s-biodiversity-water-resources-study/2396989
3. [3] Le MondeLe Monde. (2022, August 13). Thousands of illegal wells in Spain worsen water shortage. https://www.lemonde.fr/en/environment/article/2022/08/13/thousands-of-illegal-wells-in-spain-worsen-water-shortage_5993512_114.html
4. [4] Deutsche WelleDeutsche Welle. (2019). Spain’s vast network of illegal wells exposed after death of toddler. https://www.dw.com/en/spains-vast-network-of-illegal-wells-exposed-after-death-of-toddler/a-47311150
5. [5] World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF)World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). (2021). EU court rules Spain at fault over degradation of Doñana. https://www.wwf.eu/?3877416/EU-court-rules-Spain-at-fault-over-degradation-of-Donana
6. [6] Unknown author. (2016). Issues related to intensive groundwater use. ResearchGate. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/291192029_Issues_related_to_intensive_groundwater_use
7. [7] Unknown author. (2021). Regional governments do not prioritise water protection. Taylor & Francis. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02626667.2021.1918697
8. [8] World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF)World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). (n.d.). Illegal water use: Global map. https://wwfes.awsassets.panda.org/downloads/wwf_legalusewater_en.pdf
9. [9] European ParliamentEuropean Parliament. (n.d.). Testimony Solís. https://www.europarl.europa.eu/cmsdata/243335/Testimony%20Solis.pdf
10. [10] ImmoAbroadImmoAbroad. (n.d.). Can you drill a water well in Spain? Legal & practical guide. https://www.immoabroad.com/spain/can-you-drill-a-water-well-in-spain-legal-practical-guide
11. [11] Smart Water MagazineSmart Water Magazine. (2023). Spain will invest more than €29 billion to improve water management. https://smartwatermagazine.com/news/smart-water-magazine/spain-will-invest-more-eu29-billion-improve-water-management
12. [12] Unknown author. (2020). The economic impact of drought on irrigated crops in the Segura River Basin. ResearchGate. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/346368148_The_Economic_Impact_of_Drought_on_the_Irrigated_Crops_in_the_Segura_River_Basin
13. [13] InSpain NewsInSpain News. (2023). Spanish environmental police discover large-scale water theft in macro operation. https://inspain.news/spanish-environmental-police-discover-large-scale-water-theft-in-macro-operation/
14. [14] The Economy JournalThe Economy Journal. (2024). Water and the real economy: Perspective from the River Segura basin. https://www.theeconomyjournal.eu/texto-diario/mostrar/591057/water-and-the-real-economy-perspective-from-the-river-segura-basin
15. [15] Ministerio del Interior (Spain)Ministerio del Interior. (n.d.). La Guardia Civil cumple 150 años al frente de la prevención de incendios forestales. https://www.interior.gob.es/opencms/es/detalle/articulo/La-Guardia-Civil-cumple-150-anos-al-frente-de-la-prevencion-de-incendios-forestales/
16. [16] Guardia CivilGuardia Civil. (2024). Anuario estadístico 2024: SEPRONA. https://web.guardiacivil.es/export/sites/guardiaCivil/documentos/Estadistica/Anuario-MINT-2024_3_7-SEPRONA.pdf
17. [17] ABCABC. (2026, February 20). Guardia Civil detecta 900 pozos y balsas ilegales en Huelva. https://www.abc.es/espana/andalucia/huelva/guardia-civil-detecta-900-pozos-balsas-ilegales-20260220112358-nts.html