While it is fairing slightly better than the aforementioned aquifers, the researchers still consider it 'highly stressed.
In the U.S., California's Central Valley Aquiferwhich is being sucked up for agricultural usesis the most troubled aquifer in the country. Still, Walmart managed to reclaim the title of the world’s largest company. Aggregate profits were down tooby 20, the biggest decline since 2009. The culprit, needless to say, was Covid-19. Estimates of remaining storage might vary from decades to millennia," said Alexandra Richey, lead author on both studies. Global water crises from drought in the world’s most productive farmlands to the hundreds of millions of people without access to safe drinking water are the biggest threat facing the planet over the next decade. The Arabian Aquifer System, the Indus Basin aquifer of northwestern India and Pakistan, and the Murzuk-Djado Basin in northern Africa are the top three most overstressed aquifers in the world. After reaching a record high of 33.3 trillion in 2019, in 2020 total revenue for the top 500 firms fell 4.8 to 31.7 trillion, the most since 2016.
"We don't actually know how much is stored in each of these aquifers. In a companion study published in the same journal, the scientists concluded that the total remaining volume of the world's usable groundwater is poorly known, with often widely varying estimates, but is likely far less than rudimentary estimates made decades ago.īy comparing their satellite-derived groundwater loss rates to what little data exists on groundwater availability, they found major discrepancies in projected "time to depletion." The eight worst off were classified as overstressed, with nearly no natural replenishment to offset usage.Īnother five aquifers were found, in descending order, to be extremely or highly stressed, depending upon the level of replenishment in each - still in trouble but with some water flowing back into them. The studies are the first to characterise groundwater losses via data from space, using readings generated by NASA's twin GRACE satellites that measure dips and bumps in Earth's gravity, which is affected by the weight of water.įor the first study published in the journal Water Resources Research, researchers examined the planet's 37 largest aquifers between 20. "Given how quickly we are consuming the world's groundwater reserves, we need a coordinated global effort to determine how much is left," said UCI professor and principal investigator Jay Famiglietti, who is also the senior water scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The Indus Basin aquifer of northwestern India and Pakistan is the second-most overstressed, and the Murzuk-Djado Basin in northern Africa is third.Ĭalifornia's Central Valley, utilised heavily for agriculture and suffering rapid depletion, was slightly better off but still labelled highly stressed in the study. The researchers found that the Arabian Aquifer System, an important water source for more than 60 million people, is the most overstressed in the world suffering rapid depletion with little or no sign of recharging. The result is that significant segments of the planet's population are consuming groundwater quickly without knowing when it might run out, researchers said.
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