Groundwater disappearing from Arizona at alarming rate

A new global study shows freshwater is disappearing at alarming rates. ASU-led research uses 20 years of satellite data to reveal unprecedented continental drying.

Among the changes noted: freshwater is dramatically shrinking. Two-thirds of the water loss from groundwater alone. Continental drying is worsening including in the southwestern US. The groundwater loss is also leading to a rise in the sea level. This all leads to a threat for food and freshwater security for billions of people globally.

Jay Famiglietti who is the Global Futures Professor at the ASU, School of Sustainability, joined “Arizona Horizon” to discuss more on the what, the why, and the how of this situation.

“So we’re talking about the water that is on land or in the ice sheets,” Famiglietti explained, “…as opposed to in the ocean, and then when we are on land we are talking about snow, and ice, and soil moisture…”

Data was gathered from NASA’s gravity recovery and climate experiment or “GRACE” mission. The mission has been running since 2002, and allows others to track the changes in all the water available around the world on a monthly basis.

“…when we look over the 22 years we can look at the long term,” Famiglietti said, “…and that’s a lot of what we reported on in that study.”

Famiglietti discussed how important using gravity data is for the study, as it weighs the changes of water mass that enter or leave the area.

“Some of the key findings of the paper were, the continents are drying at a very rapid clip, and the areas where that drying has occurring are expanding at 2x the area of California each year,” Famiglietti explained, “…that water is ending up in the ocean and driving up sea level rise.”