LONDON: Two new studies suggest that a third of Earth’s biggest groundwater basins are quickly being depleted.
Groundwater is sourced from aquifers, which are sponge-like gravel and sand-filled underground reservoirs. These reservoirs are used to source fresh water when surface water is not readily available from lakes, rivers and above ground reservoirs. With droughts becoming the norm in places such as California, residents have been forced to rely on groundwater for water needs. But despite the obvious need for groundwater, there is no accurate data about how much water is left in the Earth’s aquifers — meaning that we cannot be sure when this source will run out, writes Nature World News.
“Available physical and chemical measurements are simply insufficient,” lead author Jay Famiglietti, from the University of California, Irvine (UCI), said in a news release. “Given how quickly we are consuming the world’s groundwater reserves, we need a coordinated global effort to determine how much is left.”
The two recent studies, led by researchers at UCI, aimed to find accurate data to tell us how much water we have left underground. They used data from NASA’s twin Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment satellites (GRACE) to measure dips and bumps in Earth’s gravity, areas signalling where the Earth has been affected by the weight of the water.
Tesla driverless system to use updated radar technology
WASHINGTON: Electric carmaker Tesla announced Sunday it was upgrading its Autopilot software to use more advanced radar technology. In a...
