Yes. We are mining water. While notionally replenishable, we are withdrawing from the water table in many areas (I'm familiar with California) so much faster than the replenishment rate that the aquifer is collapsing, meaning it will never be able to hold the water it used to anymore.
For California, the bulk of the water is sprayed on plants and evaporates. A solid 80% of the water used by humans goes to agriculture. The plants are shipped all over the world. In a very real sense, California agriculture is about mining water and then shipping it elsewhere.
For the remaining 20%, it gets used by industry (10%) and residences (10%), where some of it goes back into the ground because it's watering the grass, but the bulk of it gets sent down the drain, in some cases to be reclaimed and reused (toilet to tap sewage systems) or sent to drain the the ocean.
For other states the ratios are different, but California in particular is egregious in agriculture's abuse of the aquifers.
Yes. But it depends on the aquifer. For example the Edwards Aquifer in Texas gets recharged from rainfall. But the Ogallala Aquifer supplies water at least 10,000 years old and rain doesn't affect it. Once we pump the Ogallala dry it will stay dry.
We pump it up by the megatonne over decades, we spray it outwards for crops or to water animals.
Some travels back down through the soil, most either evaporates or is taken up by plant matter, sweat out, goes to meat, etc. - which results in movement of the water mass to elsewhere on the planet.
Groundwater reservoirs have a recharge rate. That is the rate that surface, or I suppose even deeper, water is sequestered in the layer in question. We are extracting faster than that recharge rate.
Groundwater naturally is somewhat steady state. You get rain, it filters through and then there is spring or something somewhere and goes back to cycle in river or evaporation. Part of the cycle.
Now if you remove more water than exit through the natural processes you move it out from groundwater table. Thus creating imbalance and changing the steady state.
There are many ways to recharge the ground water. One is filling up dedicated basins periodically and letting the water trickle down. These basins are managed regularly to allow the water to percolate. Rivers also help with ground water recharge but only within their watersheds and routes. Also, Newsom in California recently issued an executive order to use flood water from recent rains for ground water recharge. https://www.gov.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Refilling-...
Yes. We are mining water. While notionally replenishable, we are withdrawing from the water table in many areas (I'm familiar with California) so much faster than the replenishment rate that the aquifer is collapsing, meaning it will never be able to hold the water it used to anymore.
This photo [1] shows aquifer collapse and the resulting land subsidence well.
1. https://www.usgs.gov/mission-areas/water-resources/science/l...
Your link goes to the top of the USGS subsidence page.
Ok, but hydrologically speaking, the water goes _fucking somewhere_.
So if it isn’t our underground reservoirs, maybe it’s, I dunno, above-ground reservoirs?
For California, the bulk of the water is sprayed on plants and evaporates. A solid 80% of the water used by humans goes to agriculture. The plants are shipped all over the world. In a very real sense, California agriculture is about mining water and then shipping it elsewhere.
For the remaining 20%, it gets used by industry (10%) and residences (10%), where some of it goes back into the ground because it's watering the grass, but the bulk of it gets sent down the drain, in some cases to be reclaimed and reused (toilet to tap sewage systems) or sent to drain the the ocean.
For other states the ratios are different, but California in particular is egregious in agriculture's abuse of the aquifers.
Yes. But it depends on the aquifer. For example the Edwards Aquifer in Texas gets recharged from rainfall. But the Ogallala Aquifer supplies water at least 10,000 years old and rain doesn't affect it. Once we pump the Ogallala dry it will stay dry.
We pump it up by the megatonne over decades, we spray it outwards for crops or to water animals.
Some travels back down through the soil, most either evaporates or is taken up by plant matter, sweat out, goes to meat, etc. - which results in movement of the water mass to elsewhere on the planet.
Groundwater reservoirs have a recharge rate. That is the rate that surface, or I suppose even deeper, water is sequestered in the layer in question. We are extracting faster than that recharge rate.
I have no idea, but:
Groundwater naturally is somewhat steady state. You get rain, it filters through and then there is spring or something somewhere and goes back to cycle in river or evaporation. Part of the cycle.
Now if you remove more water than exit through the natural processes you move it out from groundwater table. Thus creating imbalance and changing the steady state.
There are many ways to recharge the ground water. One is filling up dedicated basins periodically and letting the water trickle down. These basins are managed regularly to allow the water to percolate. Rivers also help with ground water recharge but only within their watersheds and routes. Also, Newsom in California recently issued an executive order to use flood water from recent rains for ground water recharge. https://www.gov.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Refilling-...
Mining and trapping groundwater in billions of tonnes in sugary soft drinks which then sits in supermarkets maybe?