Groundwater levels are falling worldwide — but there are solutions

The world’s groundwater aquifers are under threat due to decades of reckless pumping by farms and urban areas. This has resulted in significant water depletion, posing a humanitarian crisis in countries like Iran and leading to aquifer issues in the United States. However, a recent study published in the scientific journal Nature highlights a few places where groundwater levels are actually recovering.

By using 40 years of measurement data from 170,000 groundwater wells, a team of researchers found that there are certain policies that can prevent water tables from crashing, and even restore them. These policies, such as finding alternative water sources, managed aquifer recharge, and curbing groundwater pumping, are difficult to execute and have economic costs, but they offer hope to areas that are struggling to slow down massive groundwater declines.

While aquifer recovery in response to these methods provides a blueprint for other areas, climate change could pose challenges. Nonetheless, addressing the depletion of aquifers is critical for preventing even worse consequences such as unlivable neighborhoods due to the loss of residential wells or threats to regional or national food supplies due to agricultural well depletion.