California has lost more groundwater than held in all its reservoirs

By James Dinneen

California’s Central Valley has misplaced roughly 85 cubic kilometres of groundwater storage since 2004 as a result of intensive pumping in periods of drought.

The Central Valley is among the most efficient agricultural areas on the earth, rising 40 per cent of the fruit and nuts produced within the US. When floor water is insufficient to irrigate all these crops, farmers pump groundwater from the area’s aquifer. For greater than a century, farmers have pumped extra groundwater than was changed by snowmelt and rainfall, …