In a down economy, the news centers around money. Tax cuts, tax hikes. Outrageous bonuses for irresponsible Wall Street executives. The shortfalls in everyone’s retirement accounts. These are real problems, but they take our attention off even more ominous long-term developments.
Researchers from Utrecht University in the Netherlands have presented convincing data showing that groundwater, worldwide, is being depleted at an alarming rate. That rate, they say, more than doubled between 1960, when we lost some 30 cubic miles a year, and 2000, when 68 cubic miles a year were being used up.
The central valley of California and the Midwestern United States were among the agricultural regions most affected. (Research assembled by he U.S. government’s Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming confirms that the American Midwest will likely be seven to 11 degrees hotter by 2100, and that weather there is becoming polarized between drought and flooding.) The model for the study was based on data about temperature, precipitation and evaporation for 44 years, 1958 through 2001.
As an object lesson, Marc Bierkens, who led the study, says that if water from the Great Lakes were withdrawn at the same rate that groundwater is being used up, the Lakes would go dry in 80 years. Eventually, Bierkens told ScienceDaily, water in the ground will be “so low that a regular farmer with his technology cannot reach it anymore.”
How can we deal with the increasing polarity between drought and flood? Two major pointers from the experts: First, slow down development, since paving contributes to flooding. Leave more green space to absorb water and replenish aquifers. Second, reuse water. Watering gardens with used kitchen water and composting wet food waste help keep moisture in the ground, reducing stress on sewage systems and helping soil absorb water (dry, hard ground is less absorbent than soil with some moisture).
Third, expand on the rainwater harvest concept (visit harvesth2o.com). Seattle’s city hall has a rainwater harvesting system that pumps water to restrooms from a 30,000-cubic-foot cistern, reducing indoor use of clean water by 30 percent and storm water runoff from the building by 75 percent. Kilauea Military Campground in Volcanoes National Park, Hawaii, has a catchment system that stores 3 million gallons of rainwater and supplies 25,000 to 30,000 gallons of potable water a day. Rain barrels and cisterns for houses can reduce runoff and save on water use as well.
