America is sucking up so much groundwater that it's cracking the ground.

The US is pumping so much groundwater that the ground is cracking in many places in the southwest with cracks stretching up to kilometers long.

Some cracks caused by excessive groundwater pumping can stretch for kilometres. Photo: Joseph Cook — Some cracks caused by excessive groundwater pumping can stretch for kilometres. Photo: *Joseph Cook*

Giant cracks caused by excessive groundwater pumping have been discovered in states including Arizona, Utah, and California, Business Insider reported on September 12. Groundwater is one of the main sources of fresh water on Earth, providing nearly half of all drinking water and about 40% of irrigation water globally. But humans are pumping it out faster than the Earth can replenish it naturally. When too much groundwater is sucked from natural underground aquifers, the ground sinks, forming cracks, said Joseph Cook, who studies the Earth's cracks at the Arizona Geological Survey.

“Fissures are not a natural phenomenon. They are man-made,” Cook said. They are signs of stress on the ground, he said. They outline large flat areas that have sunk due to loss of supporting groundwater. They often appear in valleys between mountains and can destroy homes, roads, canals and dams, and pose a threat to people and livestock.

Arizona has been dealing with this problem for a long time, and has been monitoring fracking since at least 2002. The Arizona Geological Survey now has 170 miles of fracking. The New York Times looked at water levels at tens of thousands of sites across the country. The findings showed that the aquifer that supplies about 90 percent of America’s water systems is being drained so severely that it may never recover. Nearly half of the sites monitored have seen significant water loss in the past 40 years. Four in 10 sites reached all-time lows in the past decade. It could take centuries, even thousands of years, for aquifers to recover.

Some places in Arizona are beyond saving, Cook said. Human water use is so rapid that rainfall doesn’t have time to replenish underground aquifers. As global temperatures rise, rivers are shrinking, forcing farmers to rely more on groundwater for fresh water. The Colorado River, which supplies fresh water to farmers across the Southwest, including Arizona, has shrunk by nearly 20 percent since 2000. If temperatures in the Colorado River basin rise a few degrees Celsius by 2050, water flow could decline by 10 to 40 percent.

One of the main problems in addressing over-pumping is a lack of coordination. The federal government has virtually no regulations on groundwater pumping, and regulatory mechanisms are weak and inconsistent across regions. Arizona is no exception. There is no limit to how much groundwater can be used, and people can pump until it runs out. Cook stressed that unless people change their habits and allow time for the aquifer to recover, the cracks will continue to grow.

An Khang (According to Science Alert )

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