Water is the lifeblood of planet earth, and without it no human, animal or plant-life can survive. Although approximately 70% of the surface of the earth is covered with water, approximately only 2% of that is fresh water.
Much of our drinking water as well as water utilised for transport, industry, agriculture, personal hygiene and food preparation amongst other uses, comes from groundwater and underground aquifers.
Are Earth’s Aquifers Evaporating?
According to a study of global groundwater by a group of NASA scientists, published in the journal Water Resources Research, many, if not most of the Earth’s aquifers are in trouble. According to their research, the water levels in 21 out of the 37 largest aquifers across the planet are trending negative.
The study, the first that gives a major accounting of groundwater change over time on a global scale was accomplished with the use of satellites. Aquifers are located underground, which makes them difficult to monitor, especially on a global scale, and the methods used by scientists in this study allowed them to only measure how aquifers were changing, not their size.
Researchers found that eight aquifers, mainly in dry climates, were dangerously overstressed, while water was being pumped out of water eleven others faster than they were being refilled. Another study conducted in 2012 found that water being moved from aquifers to the surface by human activities such as farming and mining would constitute a 25% rise of sea levels by 2050 and possibly more thereafter.
The satellites used in the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment, launched in 2002 and nicknamed GRACE, observe the mass of water beneath the ground, measuring and estimating the planet’s gravity and heaviest regions and then comparing these findings with irrigation records, which allowed then to measure groundwater.
According to the study, the aquifer beneath Democratic Republic of Congo is losing water around three times as quickly as previous statistics estimated while the aquifer beneath California’s Central Valley is in better shape than previously thought.
Continuous monitoring of our aquifers and how our groundwater is being used as well as methods of saving water are the only way that we can ensure that we will have sufficient water in the future.
Get bottled water coolers and mains fed water coolers from Living-Water. Rent a water cooler from Living-Water in London.
