Campbell provided another of his earlier papers of possible interest, pursuant to his intent expressed in a recent publication (here). M. D. Campbell and M. David Campbell prepared an invited paper in 2004 for the Chinese journal, EnviroTechnology, that clean-water resources are depleting and water costs are increasing as high-cost, low quality surface-water resources are brought online. Developing, maintaining and protecting groundwater supplies over the past century began by drilling a hole in the ground and pumping water to the surface via an engineered system. New technology was neither available nor needed. Over the past 30 years, however, significant population growth has occurred in both urban and rural U.S. and China, and the relatively shallow, cheap groundwater resources have been seriously depleted and or contaminated in areas of high population growth. The dwindling of usable groundwater resources has far-reaching consequences beyond increased pumping costs. For example, years of pumping in aquifers consisting of compressible, unconsolidated sediments can lower artesian pressure and cause land subsidence as in Houston, Texas.
The cost-benefit analysis of groundwater versus surface water strongly favors the former over the latter in most cases. Groundwater supplies are less costly to develop and are less susceptible to contamination than surface water. In large cities, water is usually supplied via a network of underground pipes either from a surface reservoir or a system of high-capacity water wells. As suburbs have expanded into rural areas, water wells often coexist with nearby oil and gas wells, landfills, mines and similar industrial operations. Coexistence is a necessity in the society of today and planning issues can be resolved without resorting to litigation, often perceived in the U.S. as a solution to divergent opinions more so than in China. Also see:
https://www.academia.edu/9963715/Growth_Faulting_and_Subsidence_in_the_Houston_Texas_Area__A_Guide_to_the_Origins_Relationships_Hazards_Potential_Impacts_and_Methods_of_Investigation_-_2015
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