There's a Water 'Time Bomb' Lurking Beneath The Planet's Surface, Scientists Warn

[Judi Lynn]

(Wynand Uys/Unsplash)
ENVIRONMENT

DAVID NIELD 23 JAN 2019

As climate change alters the world around us, scientists are warning that the impacts on groundwater reserves could take a century to catch up – which means it'll be our grandchildren dealing with the fallout of the effects on their water supply.

Groundwater – fresh water cached underground in soil and between rocks – takes much longer to respond to temperature changes than surface water, the researchers point out.

We rely on rain to keep groundwater stocked up, which means areas seeing hotter weather and less rainfall are going to be lighting the fuse for a future 'timebomb' in which water supplies can't keep up with demand. The time delay potentially makes these 'hidden' shortages even more dangerous.

"Our research shows that groundwater systems take a lot longer to respond to climate change than surface water, with only half of the world's groundwater flows responding fully within 'human' timescales of 100 years," says one of the team, Mark Cuthbert from Cardiff University in the UK.

More:
https://www.sciencealert.com/the-world-s-water-supply-is-an-environmental-timebomb-scientists-say

[violetpastille]

1. Thank you for sharing this. n/t

[JayhawkSD]

2. This piece is basically nonsensical scaremongering.

Groundwater is being depleted with extraordinary rapidity, far faster than it is being replenished, and it is a massive problem, but the cause has very little to do with climate change. We are taking groundwater out at more than 100 times the rate that nature is restoring it, even before climate change is taken into account.

It has to do with the fact, which has been known for many decades, that ground water takes centuries to accumulate. This is not, as the article implies, new knowledge. We have known it for a very long time. Wells that were producing at 100' depth fifty years ago were having to be drilled to 500'+ in order to produce in the 1980's, and even then they were producing at far lower volume. They are drilling those same wells to 1000' today and many of them are coming up dry.

A large part of the problem has to do with massive agriculture in desert areas, areas which have not received significant rainfall in more than 100 years, using groundwater that has been there for thousands of years and pumping it out at a rate so fast that the ground is sinking, in some cases as much as fifty feet.

This piece is written by climate change enthusiasts who want to add to the sense of panic. Climate change is real and it needs to be addressed, but this kind of hyperbole does not help.

[mountain grammy]

3. I thought the same thing as I read this article

Yeah, eventually climate change would affect groundwater, but there will be little left at that point. The large aquifer under the Wyoming/Montana border has been depleted by a huge coal mining operation leaving the few ranchers in the area.

And what you said about agriculture.. also true.