Drying and water depletion bring deepening crisis around the world
For more than two decades, satellites have tracked the total amounts of water held in glaciers, ice sheets, lakes, rivers, soil and the world’s vast natural reservoirs underground — aquifers. An extensive global analysis of that data now reveals fresh water is rapidly disappearing beneath much of humanity’s feet. … Scientists are seeing “mega-drying” regions that are immense and expanding — one stretching from the western United States through Mexico to Central America. … There are two primary causes of the desiccation: rising temperatures unleashed by using oil and gas, and widespread overpumping of water that took millennia to accumulate underground.
Other drought and drying news around the West:
- KSJD (Cortez, Colo.): Southwest faces persistent drought and major groundwater losses
- The Sopris Sun (Carbondale, Colo.): Drought conditions persist, scorching local flora
- KSL (Salt Lake City, Utah): Drought coordinator weighs in on declining reservoir levels
- The Water Desk (University of Colorado, Boulder): Blog: When the West’s rivers surge each spring, older groundwater dominates the runoff
