Reservoir lost 27.8m acre-feet of groundwater in 20 years, study finds, vanishing ‘twice as fast as surface water’

Reservoir lost 27.8m acre-feet of groundwater in 20 years, Nasa study finds, vanishing ‘twice as fast as surface water’

The Colorado River basin has lost 27.8m acre-feet of groundwater in the past 20 years, an amount of water nearly equivalent to the full capacity of Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the United States, a new study has found.

The research findings, based on Nasa satellite imagery from across the south-west, highlight the scale of the ongoing water crisis in the region, as both groundwater and surface water are being severely depleted.

“Groundwater is disappearing 2.4 times faster than the surface water,” said Jay Famiglietti, a hydrologist at Arizona State University and the study’s senior author.

“Everyone in the US should be worried about it, because we grow a lot of food in the Colorado River basin, and that’s food that’s used all over the entire country,” he added. “These days, we’re also supporting a number of data centers and computer chip manufacturers, and these are essential to our economy.”

  • Saleh@feddit.org
    61·
    1 month ago

    Cost is absolutely relevant. Resources are limited. As i have said the wasteful use by industry and agriculture needs to stop. I don’t understand why you are arguing against that and then claim that cost wouldn’t be relevant. Unless you want your taxes to be ramped up so some private business can waste subsidized water and make profits off it.

    The solutions are reducing water usage by using more efficient processes or shutting down wasteful industries. Crops need to be switched to less water consuming crops. Meat consumption and animal farming need to be reduced. Natural structures that help retain water need to be reestablished. Fields need to be downsized with hedges in between to protect against winds eroding and drying out the soil.

    These are the choices we need to make as society. Not throwing even more resources at a wasteful system that has no right to remain wasteful.

    • troed@fedia.io
      14·
      1 month ago

      With enough energy resources aren’t limited. Solar is that energy, since for desalination we can perform it purely during daytime and won’t need to build out batteries etc as for other energy consuming industries.

      • Saleh@feddit.org
        4·
        1 month ago

        I am sorry, but now it is getting ridiculous. You need solar panels. You need distribution lines. You need the desalination plants. If you run a reverse osmosis plant you need to regularly renew the membranes. You need the pipes and the pumps to transport the water for hundreds of kilometres. All of these need finite resources.

        Claiming resources are unlimited is techbro nonsense.