| Selected
Examples of Aquifer Depletion |
|
|
|
| Country |
Region |
Description
of Depletion |
|
|
|
| China |
North
China Plain |
Water
table falling by 2-3 meters per year under much of the Plain. As pumping
costs rise, farmers are abandoning irrigation. |
| United
States |
Southern
Great Plains |
Irrigation
is heavily dependent on water from Ogallala aquifer, largely a fossil
aquifer. Irrigated area in Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas is shrinking
as aquifer is depleted. |
| Pakistan |
Punjab |
Water
table is falling under the Punjab and in the provinces of Baluchistan
and North West Frontier. |
| India |
Punjab,
Haryana, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, and other
states |
Water
tables falling by 1-3 meters per year in some parts. In some states
extraction is double the recharge. In the Punjab, India's breadbasket
water table falling by nearly 1 meter per year. |
| Iran |
Chenaran
Plain, northeastern Iran |
Water
table was falling by 2.8 meters per year but in 2001 drought and drilling
of new wells to supply nearby city of Mashad dropped it by 8 meters. |
| Yemen |
Entire
country |
Water
table falling by 2 meters per year throughout country and 6 meters
a year in Sana'a basin. Nation's capital, Sana'a, could run out of
water by end of this decade. |
| Mexico |
State
of Guanajuato |
In
this agricultural state, the water table is falling by 1.8-3.3 meters
per year. |
|
|
|
| Source:
China from Michael Ma, "Northern Cities Sinking as Water Table Falls,"
South China Morning Post, 11 August 2001; United States from
Postel, Sandra Postel, Pillar of Sand (New York: W.W. Norton
& Company, 1999), and from Bonnie Terrell and Phillip N. Johnson,
"Economic Impact of the Depletion of the Ogallala Aquifer:
A Case Study of the Southern High Plains of Texas", presented
at the American Agricultural Economics Association annual meeting
in Nashville, TN, 8-11 August 1999; Pakistan, India, and Mexico in
Tushaar Shah et al., The Global Groundwater Situation: Overview
of Opportunities and Challenges (Colombo, Sri Lanka: International
Water Management Institute, 2000); Postel, op. cit. this note; Iran
from Chenaran Agricultural Center, Ministry of Agriculture, according
to Hamid Taravati, publisher, Iran, e-mail to author, 25 June 2002;
Christoper Ward, "Yemen's Water Crisis," based on a lecture
to the British Yemeni Society in September 2000, July 2001. |
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