Groundwater is the source of drinking water for half of Americans, and nearly all of the country’s rural communities
across the American West. California is rationing water for farmers in the state’s Central Valley. Salmon are dying, on the border of Nevada and Arizona, is drying up. The country’s largest reservoir is so depleted that the Bureau of Reclamation, an agency within the Interior Department, declared the first-ever water shortage for the Colorado River on August 16th. Facing cuts to their supplies of surface water, some farmers in the region are pumping more groundwater.
An analysis from the United States Geological Survey in 2013 found that between 1900 and 2008, groundwater was depleted by 1,000 cubic kilometres nationwide, or about twice the volume of Lake Erie, one of North America’s Great Lakes. A quarter of that was lost after 2000. The regions where depletion was most severe were the high plains, the south-west and the Gulf coast. America isn’t alone.
In America, states eventually began to recognise overpumping and legislate against it. Arizona passed a law regulating groundwater use in 1980. To its chagrin, California’s state government didn’t do so until 2014. In many cases, farmers could replace their groundwater use with water from rivers. A massive, costly aqueduct carrying Colorado River water to cities and farms in thirsty central Arizona was completed in 1993.
Now the tables have turned. Reservoirs across the region are drying up. Farmers in Arizona will be among the first to see cuts to their share of Colorado River water in January. Some may return to pumping to keep yields high. Many rural areas in the Grand Canyon State aren’t covered by the law from 1980, which focused on cities. Policymakers are exploring ways to more quickly replenish groundwater, known as “artificial recharge”. But that takes time. Meanwhile, the West keeps on getting drier.
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