We conclude that this depressurization of confined aquifers has profoundly changed groundwater storage and flow, increasing the vulnerability of deep aquifers to pollutants and contributing to land subsidence.
This paints a sobering picture of the nation’s aquifers. No matter what kind of number juggling and model tweaks our Florida water managers do, they have not found the magic to make our aquifers rise instead of fall. And unless they wake up and face reality, they will not.
Read the complete article with many graphs here in Science Advances.
Thanks to Joanne Tremblay for this link.
Comments by OSFR historian Jim Tatum.
jim.tatum@oursantaferiver.org
– A river is like a life: once taken,
it cannot be brought back © Jim Tatum
Abstract
Water supplies for household use and irrigated agriculture rely on groundwater wells. When wells are drilled into a highly pressurized aquifer, groundwater may flow up the well and onto the land surface without pumping. These flowing artesian wells were common in the early 1900s in the United States before intensive groundwater withdrawals began, but their present-day prevalence remains unknown. Here, we compile and analyze ten thousand well water observations made more than a century ago. We show that flowing artesian conditions characterized ~61% of wells tapping confined aquifers before 1910, but only ~4% of wells tapping confined aquifers today. This pervasive loss of flowing artesian conditions evidences a widespread depressurization of confined aquifers after a century of intensive groundwater use in the United States. We conclude that this depressurization of confined aquifers has profoundly changed groundwater storage and flow, increasing the vulnerability of deep aquifers to pollutants and contributing to land subsidence.
