Groundwater depletion

This essay will focus mainly upon the problems of groundwater depletion by looking at case studies in regions that have suffered it. Also, it will touch on the basic ways that groundwater is extracted and look at the ways to conserve this vital resource in areas such as the Appalachian Mountains.

For a majority of the population in the United States, groundwater acts as the primary source drinking water. This is because areas that lack direct access to large bodies of water, such as rivers or oceans, must rely upon water that has been soaked into the ground from rainfall. According the United States Geological Survey (USGS), groundwater is “the source of drinking water for about half the total population… and it provides over 50 billion gallons per day for agricultural needs.”(USGS) However, because groundwater is dependent upon a steady amount of rainfall to replenish its wells and the ways in which it is being used; many questions are asked as to how to keep groundwater from disappearing.

A question that comes to mind is, “Why concern oneself with preservation of groundwater?” This is relevant because aside from the high costs of desalinization, the process of removing salt from water, most regions in the United States can get access to water without necessarily taping into the groundwater supplies. In other words, worst comes to worse for these regions, they can always look to the oceans or other more distant, but nonetheless, viable bodies of water for drinking and agriculture. However, the most dramatic effect that can happen as the result of human-caused groundwater depletion is the formation of sinkholes.

Sinkholes form as the result of groundwater naturally dissolving the bedrock of an area of land and over enough time, enough of the bedrock can be broken down that the overlaying structures of soil and sediment can give way. This happens dramatically because while sinkholes can be forming for years, usually their appearance happens quickly and without much warning. Now while the formation of sinkholes can happen naturally, the appearance and increase in sinkholes across the United States has been attributed to the depletion of groundwater in areas of high construction according to the USGS. As groundwater is pumped away from the area that a sinkhole may form, the structures that the groundwater itself was once holding up become compromised and collapse.

I feel that this essay will continue to look at the problems associated with groundwater-depletion and begin to formulate examples in which groundwater has effected not only the region it occurs, but how it effects all of us in one way or another. I will draw from: the Atlantic coastline, in which naturally desalinized groundwater is becoming polluted by the creeping of ocean water in the aquifers of the region; the Appalachian region which has no real abundant source of attainable water outside of groundwater; and finally, the Southwest, whose practices in cultivating agriculture have lead to massive issues dealing with groundwater depletion.

Bibliography

Alley, W.M., Reilly, T.E., and Franke, O.L. "Sustainability of ground-water resources." U.S. Geological Survey Circular 1186. (1999) p. 79.

Grannemann, N.G., Hunt, R.J., Nicholas, J.R., Reilly, T.E., and Winter, T.C."The importance of ground water in the Great Lakes region." U.S. Geological Survey Water-Resources Investigations Report 00-4008. (2000): p.14.

Perlman , Howard. "Groud-Water Depletion." (2009): n. pag. Web. 29 Jan 2010. (http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/gwdepletion.html).

Taylor, C.J., and Alley, W.M. Ground-waterlevel monitoring and the importance of long-term water-level data. U.S. Geological Survey Circular 1217.(2001). p. 68.