Tag:

groundwater

California Takes Steps to Curb Lawn Watering During Severe Drought

In the midst of a severe, long-term drought, California is taking unprecedented steps to discourage watering of residential lawns, with some areas offering residents substantial cash incentives for installing water-saving landscaping, AFP reports.

The “Cash in Your Lawn” program in Los Angeles offers residents up to $6,000 ($3 per square foot) for replacing their lawns with drought-tolerant plants, rocks, and pebbles. Throughout the state, Governor Jerry Brown recently prohibited lawn watering more than two times per week and banned fines for brown lawns, which homeowner associations sometimes impose with the intent of improving a neighborhood’s appearance.

The drought, currently in its third year, threatens the water supply of California’s 38 million residents. Agricultural regions have already seen severe water reductions, placing extra pressure on the state’s groundwater reserves. Roughly five percent of croplands across the Central Valley, Central Coast, and Southern California have been made fallow due to the drought, say researchers from the University of California, Davis.

August 5, 2014 2 comments

Southwestern U.S. Aquifers Are Extremely Low, NASA Data Show

written by Yale Environment 360

Groundwater reserves in the U.S. Southwest are severely low and prospects for their long-term viability are bleak as persistent drought continues to parch the land and prevent recharging, according to an assessment from NASA.

As shown in this map, many underground aquifers in the Southwest are extremely dry compared to average conditions over the past 60 years. Deep red areas on the map, such as in southern California and Nevada, depict aquifers that are so dry there’s less than a 2 percent chance they could have experienced such levels of drought-related depletion since 1948.

Although the Pacific Northwest is experiencing drought-related wildfires, aquifers in that region appear to be well-stocked, according to the map. The discrepancy is likely due to the long lag between dry conditions at the surface and depletion of groundwater reserves, researchers say.

This assessment, which NASA considers experimental, is based on observations of small changes in Earth’s mass and gravity field — features that are affected by the movement and storage of water.

July 28, 2014 1 comment

Middle East Water Loss Is Starkly Documented by NASA Satellites

written by Yale Environment 360

A pair of gravity-measuring NASA satellites has documented a precipitous drop in freshwater supplies in the arid Middle East over the past decade. NASA said that since 2003 parts of Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and Iran had lost 144 cubic kilometers of total stored freshwater, an amount roughly equivalent to the water in the Dead Sea.

February 14, 2013 0 comment

Sea-Level Rise Projections Ignored Critical Feedbacks, Researcher Says

written by Yale Environment 360

A U.S. researcher says projected sea-level rise over the next century has been underestimated because current models fail to consider several critical feedbacks that might accelerate rising seas in the coming decades.

While the 2007 report of the Intergovernmental Panel

November 5, 2012 0 comment

Large Utah Tar Sands Mine a Threat to Region’s Water Supplies, Groups Say

written by Yale Environment 360

Two environmental organizations are fighting a Canadian company’s plan to mine a massive reserve of oil sands in eastern Utah, saying the project would tax water supplies in what is already the U.S.’s second-driest state.

In what would be the U.S.’s first large-scale oil sands

August 17, 2012 0 comment

Groundwater Pumping Emerges As a Factor in Sea Level Rise, Study Says

written by Yale Environment 360

The vast amounts of water pumped out of the ground for irrigation, drinking water, and industrial uses will increasingly contribute to global sea level rise in the coming decades, according to a new study.

According to researchers at Utrecht University, humans pumped about 204 cubic kilometers (49

May 10, 2012 0 comment

Carbon Capture and Storage: A Long-Term Solution for Natural Gas?

written by Walter Wang

If natural gas is a “bridge fuel,” what’s on the other side?

This question kept popping up in recent weeks as a series of reports predicted gas would become a growing part of the global energy mix in the coming decades. Gas, while cleaner burning than coal, still falls short of the low-emissions scenarios envisioned by world leaders,

June 20, 2011 3 comments

Rate of Groundwater Depletion Worldwide Doubled Since 1960, Study Says

written by Yale Environment 360

A burgeoning human population has doubled the rate at which it is pumping dry sources of groundwater in recent decades, according to a new study. Relying on a global database of groundwater use and demand, the researchers from Utrecht University calculated that the rate of withdrawal of groundwater stocks jumped from about 30 cubic miles annually (126

September 27, 2010 0 comment

Vulnerability of Water Supplies Hidden Underground

written by Environmental News Network

The Earth is truly a blue planet; 70 percent of its surface is covered with water. Unfortunately 97.5 percent of that is salt water, unusable for humans. Fresh water accounts for the other 2.5 percent, however, about two thirds of that is locked up in glaciers and in the icy poles. That leaves humans (and every other living creature on land) only about one percent of all the water on Earth to use.

If we break this down even further, we see more limitations. Of the one percent usable water, only one percent is actually on the surface and can be easily accessed. This includes lakes, rivers, and swamps. The rest is underground. The U.S. Geological Survey has estimated the actual quantities in cubic miles for water distribution on Earth and is as follows:
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March 27, 2010 0 comment

GRACE Satellites Show Depletion of Indian Groundwater Due to Irrigation

written by Ceylan Thomson

A pair of satellites that measures changes in the earth’s gravity has shown that the intense irrigation of a 1,200-mile swath of northern India is depleting groundwater at a rate of 1.5 to 4 inches per year.

The satellites, part of a joint U.S.-German mission known as GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment), show that the region — inhabited by 600 million people heavily dependent on irrigated agriculture — is withdrawing 13 cubic miles of water per year from underground aquifers.

Reporting in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, U.S. and Indian scientists analyzed satellite data from 2002 to 2008 and concluded that Indian farmers are pumping out groundwater 70 percent faster than estimated by the Central Ground Water Board of India in the 1990s.

August 12, 2009 1 comment