How to Save California Precious Groundwater, the Dark Matter of our Water World

Climate Change, Anthropocene, & Associated Issues

Date posted: 06/06/16

Graham Fogg reports as California suffers its 4th year of drought, much of the attention is focused on the state groundwater, a critical source of water and one that is being depleted. What is happening to the state groundwater resources during this drought, and how can scientists and policymakers manage it effectively? One way to think about groundwater is to compare it to dark matter, which is invisible yet accounts for most of the matter in the universe. Similarly, groundwater is invisible yet accounts for about 95% of all circulating freshwater on earth. While the science of groundwater is mostly well-known and tested, the effective management of it, in concert with management of surface water, remains a frontier, like dark matter. For an analogy closer to home, consider the world of finance. Imagine that all of your money, including retirement funds, is in two bank accounts. The balance, deposits and withdrawals from account A are known, but are largely unknown for account B. Then here is the kicker ... when the balance in account A gets depleted, things change: uncontrolled, largely unknown amounts of cash are withdrawn from account B. How would this financial management strategy work for you? Of course, it would be disastrous, yet this is how we commonly mismanage our interconnected accounts A, surface water, and B, groundwater. Such mismanagement will cause crises, except when account B is flush with cash or water. Indeed, for the last half-century many groundwater systems have been flush enough to cover for lack of water resources management. Now, however, it is clear that we have moved into a new era of water scarcity driven by growing world population and water demand that is exposing more groundwater crises across the globe, including the North China Plain, India, the Middle East, Australia and California. To further complicate matters, our climate already seems to be fulfilling the projections of climate models that indicate futures with extremes.