Abstract
Groundwater is a critical source of water to the world, and for good reason—it is often accessible, abundant, and affordable. Groundwater now supports 26 percent of human water use, about 982 cubic kilometers per year with 70 percent for irrigation, 21 percent for domestic uses, and 9 percent for industrial use. Unfortunately, much of the groundwater produced to support human activities has been produced unsustainably. Estimated groundwater depletion from 1900 to 2008 is about 4500 cubic kilometers, averaging about 145 cubic kilometers per year from 2000 through 2008. Water-level declines in the world’s groundwater systems have caused storage declines in many of the largest aquifers on most continents, decreased springflows by as much as 6.6 percent, decreased groundwater flows into wetland regions by as much as 75 percent, caused as much as 77 percent of the world’s land subsidence, caused sea-water intrusion, and impacted the sustainability of the world’s agricultural output. In many places across the planet, especially in developing countries, there is little to no groundwater management. Accordingly, sustainable development has become more of a focus as planners and regulators seek to address concerns over the impacts of unsustainable groundwater production.
“Are we being good ancestors?”
Jonas Salk ( 1992 )
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Notes
- 1.
As we will learn later, sustainable development is generally much lower than this.
- 2.
Note that this number is not in harmony with the Shiklomanov (1993) numbers, although, admittedly, the Shiklomanov (1993) numbers are for the planet while the Alley and others (1999) analysis is for the United States. Nonetheless, if the Shiklomanov (1993) number for runoff held true in the United States, then groundwater flows would be about 29,900 cubic kilometers per year instead of 2200.
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Mace, R.E. (2022). The Importance of Groundwater Sustainability. In: Groundwater Sustainability. Palgrave Studies in Environmental Sustainability. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13516-3_1
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