The Colorado river basin has lost huge volumes of groundwater in the past two decades according to a new report by researchers from Arizona State University. The researchers used data from the NASA satellites to map the rapid exhausting resource.
The region, which includes seven Western states, has lost 27.8 million acres of underground water since 2003. It is roughly the volume of Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the country.
The results add a complication layer for the already stressed Colorado river. As demand for its water supply, more users can turn to groundwater instead, which is often less regulated than rivers and upper streams.
The majority of water conservation work in the Colorado river basin were focused on cutting down the use of surface water. Some river experts say the accent should be wider.
Brian Richter analyzes water policy and science as a president of sustainable waters. He was not an author of the study, but says that his results show the need for a “holistic perspective” on the management of the water of the managers of the region.
“This suggests that we must become more aggressive and more urgent in our reduction in our overall water consumption,” he said.
The study revealed that the losses of groundwater in the Colorado river basin were 2.4 times higher than the quantity of lost water from the surfaces of Lake Powell, Lake Mead and a number of other smaller tanks that store water from River Colorado. The study highlights the use of excessive agriculture water in the Colorado river basin and has declared that industry could undergo some of the largest consequences if the region continues to undermine limited water supplies.
Most losses have occurred in the states of the lower river basin in Arizona, California and Nevada. The study indicates that the “Active Management Zones of Arizona”, that the State has created to regulate the withdrawal of groundwater, may have helped to slow out the exhaustion.
Kathleen Ferris, architect of Arizona’s groundwater laws, said much more work was necessary to protect groundwater.
“We are not on the right track,” said Ferris, who was not involved in the study. “We are well behind the eight bullets, and I am really sad that nothing seems to be done. We should have thought of this problem 25 years ago. ”
Ferris is now a principal researcher at Kyl Center for Water policy of Arizona State University.
While experts call for more robust groundwater management policies, Richter said that this study presents a small silver lining: scientists produce better data than ever, giving political decision -makers a better sense of water problems in the region.
“From the point of view of public policy, this is bad news,” he said. “This tells us that it is worse than we thought, because now we understand what is also happening underground. From a scientific point of view, this type of study is good news, because it says that we are now much more capable of describing a water problem as what we are experiencing in the Colorado river system.”
This story is part of the continuous water coverage in the West, produced by Kunc in Colorado and supported by the Walton Family Foundation. Kunc is solely responsible for its editorial coverage.
