A new study maps, for the first time, the permanent loss of aquifer storage capacity occurring globally.
A new study maps, for the first time, the permanent loss of aquifer storage capacity occurring globally.
Global water resources are stretched by climate change and human population growth, and farms and cities are increasingly turning to groundwater to fill their needs. Unfortunately, the pumping of groundwater can cause the ground surface above to sink, as the aquifers below are drained and the architecture of the ground collapses. For the first time, a new study maps this loss of groundwater storage capacity around the world.
In the study, published October in the journal Nature Communications, researchers from DRI, Colorado State University, and the Missouri University of Science and Technology examined how groundwater extraction is driving land subsidence and aquifer collapse.
“Our study puts land subsidence happening from excessive groundwater pumping to a global context,” said Fahim Hasan, a Ph.D. candidate at Colorado State University and the study’s lead author.
Read more at Desert Research Institute
Image: Previous research in California’s Central Valley determined that this location in Merced County subsided approximately 8.6 ft between 1965 and 2016. (Photograph courtesy of USGS, California Water Science Center)
