We are Draining Our Aquifiers Dry in America

 NY Times ran a great story a few days ago about how we are drawing our fresh water aquifers dry.  America Is Using Up Its Groundwater Like There’s No Tomorrow.

We are draining water faster than nature can replenish it. Four out of every ten sites investigated by the Times have been at record low levels in the past decade.

Sections of Kansas, part of America's bread basket, can no longer support industrial scale farming.

So much water has been pumped out in sections of Texas, Utah and California that roads are buckling.

Global warming  is accelerating the depletion as snow packs are smaller.

As a aquifer is depleted it can crater, or cave in, because it has been emptied.

"It adds up to what might be called a climate trap. As rising temperatures shrink rivers in much of the country, farmers and towns have an incentive to pump more groundwater to make up the difference.

Experts call that a self-defeating strategy. By draining aquifers that filled up over thousands or millions of years, regions risk losing access to that water in the future when they might need it even more, as climate change makes rainfall less predictable or droughts more severe.

“From an objective standpoint, this is a crisis,” said Warigia Bowman, a law professor and water expert at the University of Tulsa. “There will be parts of the U.S. that run out of drinking water.”

As farmers ran out of water, they increasingly switched to what’s called dryland farming, relying on rain alone.

That change is reflected in corn yields over time. Last year, corn growers nationwide produced an average of 173 bushels per acre. But for Wichita County, the yield was just 70.6 bushels, the lowest in more than six decades. The same is true for neighboring counties, whose yields have fallen to where they were in the 1960s.

Kansas has no mechanism in place to stop its groundwater decline.

The Kansas Geological Survey produces what it calls a lifetime map for the Ogallala Aquifer within state borders. It shows that large areas already lack enough water for commercial agricultural irrigation.

In the parts of Western Kansas where the usable portions of the Ogallala are located, more than one-quarter of the aquifer is at what the survey calls “minimum threshold,” according to Brownie Wilson, water data manager with the Kansas Geological Survey. That means it’s not possible to extract 200 gallons per minute, a standard threshold for large-scale irrigation. Within 50 years, almost half of the aquifer in that area is expected to decline to minimum threshold.

Wichita County and neighboring counties have been one of the first areas in Kansas to get close to the bottom of the aquifer, Mr. Wilson said. But they won’t be the last. “Tomorrow is here today for them, in terms of reduced yields,” he said.

Some farmers say they can adapt, including Mr. Watt, who cited advances in plant genetics and also more efficient irrigation and better land management. Experts say farmers nationwide should make similar changes to ensure remaining groundwater is used as carefully as possible.

But those types of innovations will only work for so long, said Bill Golden, a professor of agricultural economics at Kansas State University. “The loss of water is going to outpace the gain of technology,” he said. “Eventually, we’re going to lose.”

Much more--Click on the link and read the article.