Human consumption could deplete
groundwater in parts of India, southern Europe and the U.S. in the
coming decades, according to new research presented at the 2016 AGU
Fall Meeting.
New modeling of the world's groundwater levels finds aquifers -- the
soil or porous rocks that hold groundwater -- in the Upper Ganges
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Basin area of India, southern Spain and Italy could be depleted
between 2040 and 2060.
In the U.S., aquifers in California's Central Valley, Tulare Basin and
southern San Joaquin Valley, could be depleted within the 2030s.
Aquifers in the southern High Plains, which supply groundwater to
parts of Texas, Oklahoma and New Mexico, could reach their limits
between the 2050s and 2070s.
By 2050, as many as 1.8 billion people could live in areas where
groundwater levels are fully or nearly depleted because of excessive
pumping of groundwater for drinking and agriculture, according to Inge
de Graaf, a hydrologist at the Colorado School of Mines in Golden.
"While many aquifers remain productive, economically exploitable
groundwater is already unattainable or will become so in the near
future, especially in intensively irrigated areas in the drier regions
of the world," said de Graaf, the lead researcher.
"Knowing the limits of groundwater resources is imperative, as
billions of gallons of groundwater are used daily for agriculture and
drinking water worldwide," said de Graaf.
Previous studies used satellite data to show that several of the
world's largest aquifers were nearing depletion.
But this method can't be used to measure aquifer depletion on a
smaller, regional scale.
In the new research, the researchers used new data on aquifer
structure, water withdrawals and interactions between groundwater and
surrounding water to simulate groundwater depletion and recovery on a
regional scale.
The research team used their model to forecast when and where aquifers
around the world may reach their limits, or when water levels drop
below the reach of modern pumps. Limits were considered exceeded when
groundwater levels dropped below the pumping threshold for two
consecutive years.
The study also found heavily irrigated regions in drier climates, such
as the U.S. High Plains, the Indus and Ganges basins, and portions of
Argentina and Australia, face the greatest threat of depletion.
Although it estimates the limits of global groundwater on a regional
scale, scientists still lack complete data about aquifer structure and
storage capacity to say exactly how much groundwater remains in
individual aquifers, she said.
"We don't know how much water there is, how fast we're depleting
aquifers, or how long we can use this resource before devastating
effects take place, like drying up of wells or rivers," de Graaf said.
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