America Is Using Up Its Groundwater Like There’s No Tomorrow
Many of the aquifers that supply 90 percent of the nation’s water systems, and which have transformed vast stretches of America into some of the world’s most bountiful farmland, are being severely depleted.
These declines are threatening irreversible harm to the American economy and society as a whole.
New York Times 28 August 2023
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/08/28/climate/groundwater-drying-climate-change.html
Groundwater “mining.”
Regulations in some states, including Oklahoma, are guided by a principle of letting users extract groundwater at rates that exceed an aquifer’s ability to recharge. Some hydrologists call it groundwater “mining.”
The depletion threatens not only the tap water that supplies just over one-third of America’s drinking water, but also some of the most productive farmland in the world, which has become increasingly reliant on groundwater.
While farmers face severe risks from groundwater depletion, many warn that too much regulation would harm their livelihoods and the nation’s food supply.
“Farming would not exist as we know it in California without the use of groundwater,”
New York Times 2 November 2023
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/11/02/climate/us-groundwater-depletion-rules.html
What is groundwater?
https://www.usgs.gov/science/faqs/water
https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/what-groundwater
The Western US is an empire built on snow. And that snow is vanishing.
https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2022/08/the-western-us-is-empire-built-on-snow.html
Grundvattnet i Kalifornien
U.S. Drought Imperils Economy in California’s Farm Country
https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2021/05/grundvattnet-i-kalifornien.html
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