Future generations could be faced with an environmental ‘time bomb’ if climate change is to have a significant effect on the world’s essential groundwater reserves.
This is according to a researcher from Cardiff University and a team of international collaborators who have for the first time provided a global insight in to what will happen should our groundwater systems start to see changes in their replenishment.
In a new paper published in the journal Nature Climate Change, the research team have shown that in more than half of the world’s groundwater systems, it could take over 100 years for groundwater systems to completely respond to current environmental change.
Groundwater, found underground in the cracks and pore spaces in soil, sand and rock, is the largest source of usable freshwater in the world, and is relied on by more than two billion people as a source of drinking and irrigation water.
Groundwater resources are replenished predominantly through rainfall in a process known as recharge. At the same time, water exits or discharges from groundwater resources into lakes, streams and oceans to maintain an overall balance.
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