DOCUMENT: USGS report
Groundwater Depletion in the United States (1900–2008)
A recent study by the U.S. Geological Survey estimated that between 1900 and 2008, cumulative groundwater depletion in the United States — the total volume of water lost from aquifers across the country — was about 1,000 cubic kilometers. That amount, if spread out over California, would cover the state with water more than 7 feet deep.
The pressures on aquifers keep growing due to burgeoning populations and pumping by farms and industries. Wells have gone dry in parts of Texas this year. Wells have also gone dry in parts of California’s San Luis Obispo County where vineyards are using large quantities of water. And in some areas of the Central Valley, the level of the ground has sunk dramatically as water has been drained away to irrigate crops.
“What we know in Southern California, which we can see from satellites and from monitoring on the ground, is how the level of groundwater is dropping,” said hydrologist Jay Famiglietti, a professor at UC Irvine and director of the UC Center for Hydrologic Modeling. “We’re using the water at a much quicker rate than it’s being replenished, so the level of the water in the aquifer drops and ultimately we will hit bottom.”
He said the Coachella Valley appears to fit this overdraft pattern.
Five facts about water use in the Coachella Valley
No one knows exactly how much groundwater remains beneath the Coachella Valley. Water agencies have calculated the cumulative overdraft since the 1970s at more than 5.3 million acre-feet of water. That’s enough to fill more than 2.6 million Olympic swimming pools, with each acre-foot equivalent to 325,851 gallons.
The state Department of Water Resources in 1964 estimated that the aquifer, in the first 1,000 feet below ground, had a total capacity of at least 39.2 million acre-feet. Based on that estimate, the aquifer has lost about 13.5 percent of the total since the 1970s.
Find out more online at www.DesertWaterAgency.com
and www.ElectMichaelPaduanoDWA.org
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