Ongoing dry weather also remains a factor. Wilmington, which has the most complete climatological data in the Cape Fear Region, had a year-to-date rainfall surplus of over four inches just a few weeks ago, in early March. But, remarkably, that metric is poised to switch to the first year-to-date DEFICIT of 2021 as the mostly dry days and weeks continue to stack atop one another.
When a well runs dry, people who rely on the water often have no warning. As the water table dips lower, the pump will begin to suck air and faucets will sputter as water stops flowing.
The consequences of years of gradual declines in groundwater suddenly become visible, leaving people struggling with the costs of drilling a deeper well or finding water from another source.
New research shows that in dozens of countries around the world, from the United States to India, wells are increasingly at risk. With even moderate declines in groundwater levels, researchers have found, millions of wells could run dry.
The researchers analyzed records for about 39 million wells in 40 countries or territories and found that between 6% and 20% of wells are no more than 5 meters (16 feet) deeper than the water table. If groundwater levels continue to decline just a bit more, many of those wells could be left high and dry.
“Up to one in five wells are not much deeper than their local groundwater level,” said Debra Perrone, an assistant professor of environmental studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. “That's quite a lot of people that are vulnerable to having a well run dry.”
What the research found
Perrone and coauthor Scott Jasechko, an assistant professor of water resources at UCSB, compiled and analyzed millions of records of wells’ locations and depths and the dates they were drilled in countries across the world, from Canada to Argentina to Thailand.
They compared the depths of the wells to measured groundwater levels in countries that publish data, such as Mexico, France and Australia. They also used data from satellites that have tracked shifts in water resources globally and shown widespread declines in aquifers.
“Our work highlights the vulnerability of existing wells to groundwater depletion,” the researchers wrote in the study, which was published last week in the journal Science.
With water levels declining in many areas, newly drilled wells tend to be deeper than older wells. But the study also found, surprisingly, that newer wells aren’t being constructed deeper than older wells in some places where aquifers are falling, indicating that newer wells “are at least as likely to run dry as older wells if groundwater levels continue to decline.”
Chronic overpumping has been depleting groundwater in many parts of the western United States, from rural communities in Arizona to the farmlands of the southern High Plains in Kansas. As large farms with deep wells have pumped from the aquifers, water levels have dropped and some nearby homeowners have been left with dry wells.
A 2019 Arizona Republic investigation revealed how unchecked pumping by expanding farms has been draining groundwater while homeowners and rural towns have been left with mounting costs as wells run dry. The Republic’s analysis of state groundwater data showed water levels in nearly a fourth of the wells in the state’s monitoring program have dropped more than 100 feet since they were drilled, a loss that experts say is probably irrecoverable.
The investigation revealed that large corporate farms have been dramatically expanding their operations, that new well-drilling has been accelerating and that the largest declines in water levels have occurred in farming areas where there are no limits on pumping.
Heavy use of groundwater has dried up some desert streams and reduced the flow of other rivers in the Southwest. And in places, collapsing aquifers have led to sinking ground, leaving gaping fissures in the land and cracking roads and canals.
In California, water officials have recorded more than 2,800 reports of “household water supply shortages,” which generally involve dry wells, since 2013. Many of those wells dried up during the state’s last severe drought from 2012-16, and many of those cases occurred in the Central Valley, where agricultural pumping has been drawing down water levels for decades.
As the West’s water supplies are strained by deepening drought and the long-term effects of climate change, the latest research points to serious risks that many more wells could soon be in jeopardy as groundwater levels continue to sink lower.
A global crisis, from Africa to the Southwest
The new study is the first to compile and analyze well-drilling records showing locations and depths on a global scale, and the findings show how continuing groundwater depletion may threaten a large portion of existing wells in many countries.
In an accompanying article in Science, water scientists Jay Famiglietti and Grant Ferguson describe it as “the hidden crisis beneath our feet.”
“Jasechko and Perrone have helped make the invisible visible,” they wrote, saying the study delivers “a timely warning that universal access to groundwater is fundamentally at risk.”
Famiglietti is a hydrologist and director of the Global Institute for Water Security at the University of Saskatchewan, where Ferguson is a professor focusing on hydrogeology.
“As groundwater levels decline around the world, only the relatively wealthy will be able to afford the cost of drilling deeper wells and paying for the additional power required to pump groundwater from greater depths,” Famiglietti and Ferguson wrote. They said low-income families, poorer communities and small farms “will experience progressively more limited access in the many regions around the world where groundwater levels are in decline.”
They pointed out that it’s already been happening in California’s Central Valley, where in many cases farmworkers and other low-income homeowners rely on the shallowest wells and have often been the ones left dealing with dry wells.
“Without intervention, the gap between the water ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’ will only widen further,” Famiglietti and Ferguson wrote.
Billions of people worldwide rely on groundwater pumped from wells for drinking water. Nearly half of the world’s irrigated agriculture depends on groundwater.
In previous research, Jasechko and Perrone analyzed nearly 12 million well-drilling records from across the United States and found that in many areas Americans have been drilling deeper for groundwater as levels decline.
In their latest study, they compiled and analyzed well completion records from 70 other databases. They gathered data from Brazil, Chile, Portugal, Spain, Namibia, South Africa and other countries, all representing about half of the groundwater that is pumped each year worldwide.
The analysis focused on countries for which data are readily available, including some that are among the biggest groundwater users, such as India (No. 1), the United States (No. 2) and Mexico, which is among the top seven nations. Other major groundwater users such as China, Pakistan and Iran weren’t included.
The researchers estimated that between 6% and 20% of wells aren’t much deeper than the water table — specifically, not more than 5 meters deeper — using two different global estimates of water tables from previous studies.
In six Southwestern states from California to New Mexico, the analysis showed the prevalence of wells with depths close to the water table was a little higher, with the lower estimate turning out to be 8% instead of 6%. And in Mexico, that lower estimate was even higher, at 12%.
The Southwest really “pops out” in the data because relatively deep wells are widespread, Jasechko said, and some areas have large numbers of very deep wells.
When Jasechko made a map of well depths in central and southern Arizona, wells deeper than 100 meters (328 feet) appeared as thick concentrations of red dots, like chili powder scattered across the map.
In some rural areas of Arizona, such as Willcox, large farming operations pump water from hundreds of feet underground, drawing on wells as deep as 2,500 feet. Nearby homeowners, many of whom have wells from 350 to 600 feet deep, are relatively vulnerable as pumping continues and water levels drop.
When wells run dry, homeowners often must pay tens of thousands of dollars to drill a deeper well or deepen the existing well. Others have turned to paying for water hauled by truck. While selling a property with a dry well could be appealing for some, it’s also tough to sell land without access to water.
“Deeper wells are expensive. And so this raises a number of equity and adaptation concerns over the long term,” Perrone said, “because the people who can drill deeper are the people with the money to do so.”
Declines in groundwater can result not only from overpumping but also from reductions in the amount of water that’s recharging aquifers, due to drought, climate change or a combination of factors.
The researchers said groundwater plays an especially vital role as the world gets hotter with climate change and as droughts grow more intense in the Western U.S. and other arid regions.
“I was surprised at how many places we found groundwater levels were declining, yet newer wells were not much deeper than older wells, implying new wells are at least as vulnerable,” Jasechko said.
He and other scientists often describe aquifers as underground “savings accounts” of water, finite resources that are naturally replenished very slowly and should be managed for long-term sustainability.
“I think this research has driven home how widespread reliance on groundwater is around the world, and just how important it is as a buffer against climate change and variability,” Jasechko said. “Excessive groundwater pumping can deplete groundwater reserves and cause wells to run dry. And that impacts people in terms of their access to clean and reliable tap water,” as well as access to water they depend on for their livelihoods.
Groundwater also is connected to rivers and streams and the ecosystems they support.
Some stretches of rivers receive inflows from groundwater, while in others, river water seeps down into aquifers. In a separate study this year, Jasechko, Perrone and other scientists found that two-thirds of streams lie above surrounding groundwater levels, showing many of these potentially “leaky” streams already may be losing flow as wells draw water close by.
Potential solutions
In their latest study, Jasechko and Perrone wrote that groundwater depletion is projected to continue in areas where it’s occurring and “expand to new areas.” Despite that, they said, some countries don’t have long-term groundwater monitoring programs. They suggested these countries start monitoring groundwater levels and making the data publicly available.
Perrone said there are a wide variety of solutions for managing groundwater and preventing undesirable outcomes, such as implementing science-based regulations, adopting water-saving technologies and using available water to recharge aquifers.
“The solutions are complex, but there are solutions that could get us to sustainable groundwater management,” Perrone said. For one thing, she said, having detailed local information about the water supply is fundamental.
At the global scale, Famiglietti and Ferguson said the findings show that “climate resilience is at considerable risk.”
They called for action to prevent widespread water shortages, saying the consequences of millions of wells running dry “would be severe and unparalleled,” posing major threats to food production and the health and livelihoods of millions.
“Disappearing groundwater resources may act as a trigger for violent conflicts and have the potential to generate waves of climate refugees,” they wrote. “Avoiding such a scenario is clearly paramount to human security.”
Ian James covers water, climate change and the environment for The Arizona Republic. Send him story tips, comments and questions at ian.james@arizonarepublic.com and follow him on Twitter at @ByIanJames.
Environmental coverage on azcentral.com and in The Arizona Republic is supported by a grant from the Nina Mason Pulliam Charitable Trust. Follow The Republic environmental reporting team at environment.azcentral.com and @azcenvironment on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
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April 29, 2021 at 01:32AM
https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona-environment/2021/04/28/scientists-find-many-groundwater-wells-risk-running-dry/7347312002/
A 'hidden crisis': Millions of groundwater wells are at risk of running dry, scientists find - The Arizona Republic
Summit County’s mountain landscape is covered in a fresh coating of springtime snow. Despite a wet April, the region is still well behind median snowpack for this winter. Photo by Joel Wexler
EAGLE — For many climate experts, the current drought in Western Colorado is the worst they’ve seen in their lifetimes, and the outlook isn’t great for the coming summer.
Joel Lisonbee — who works for the National Integrated Drought Information System, a division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — said drought conditions have been improving in Colorado but primarily on the eastern side of the Continental Divide. He noted that current 90-day outlooks aren’t good for temperature, precipitation and drought tendency.
That’s going to affect forest health, stream health and water supplies.
Eagle River Watershed Council Director Holly Loff said the lower runoff expected this spring may not give local streams enough water to self-cleanse as they do during more normal years.
Runoff translates to water that can clean out streambeds, including the small spaces between rocks. That’s where insects reproduce. Fewer insects means less food for fish.
Combine that with expected warmer summer temperatures, and local fish populations will struggle.
Even if local snowpack was normal, soils throughout the region are parched from a dry summer and fall in 2020. Snowmelt will soak into the soil before much of that water reaches local streams.
Helicopters fill up fire retardant slurry to fight the Grizzly Creek Fire on Sunday, Aug. 16, 2020, in Glenwood Canyon near Glenwood Springs. Chris Dillmann/cdillmann@vaildaily.com
Fire season could be rugged
Drier-than-normal conditions can also contribute to active fire seasons. Fire officials across the region are gearing up.
Eagle Holy Cross Ranger District District Ranger Leanne Veldhuis said her office has hired a fire prevention officer for this year and has added two positions to its Front Country Ranger program.
Education is going to be a big part of those employees’ jobs.
Veldhuis said the fire prevention officer will focus on community outreach and patrols.
Front Country Rangers, funded in part by local governments, will also work to help forest users understand the rules about fire safety. U.S. Forest Service employees in 2020 put out a number of unattended campfires, some of which were wind-whipped into small wildfires.
“We can’t be everywhere at all times,” Veldhuis said, adding that she hopes forest users come to understand the role they play preventing wildfires.
While fire is part of a forest ecosystem, Veldhuis noted that the equation changes when wildfires start due to out-of-control campfires or other causes.
Those fires “continue to change the landscape,” Veldhuis said.
In preparation for this fire season, Veldhuis said the Forest Service is adding resources to be available in case of wildfire.
In Vail, the Vail Fire Department’s seasonal wildfire team will show up May 3. That’s a couple of weeks earlier than normal.
Paul Cada, the department’s wildland fire specialist, said public education is a big part of the department’s work. In fact, the department recently announced a program asking residents to complete tasks related to preparing for a wildfire. Those tasks range from signing up for community alerts to improving defensible space around homes.
“Preparedness is our big push in May,” Cada said. “It’s really the time for folks to (act).”
At the Avon-based Eagle River Fire Protection District, community risk manager and public information officer Tracy LeClair said local agencies have been conducting prescribed burns and other mitigation through the late winter and early spring.
A model from the National Integrated Drought Information System, a division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, shows that current 90-day outlooks in Colorado, particularly on the Western Slope, aren’t good for temperature, precipitation and drought tendency.
It’s a joint effort
“We’ve taken a much bigger role in trying to take on mitigation projects,” LeClair said. Reducing fuel loads won’t stop a wildland fire, but LeClair added that mitigation can help ease the spread of those fires.
It’s a team effort to work on fire prevention and firefighting, LeClair said.
“Cooperation is the name of the game,” she said. “We can’t do it alone.”
A warm, dry summer with below-average streamflows is also concerning news for local water providers.
Eagle River Water & Sanitation District Communications and Public Affairs Manager Diane Johnson was able to quickly rattle off several drought years in the past 20 or so.
“Droughts are getting more frequent and more severe,” Johnson said. The goal at the district is to “permanently reduce” the amount of water customers use.
Most of that reduction has to come from outdoor watering. Much of the district’s water supply comes from local streamflows. More than 90% of indoor water use is returned to local streams after treatment. Only about 25% of outdoor water use ends up back in streams.
Johnson urged district customers to work with their landscapers to cut back on outdoor watering.
“Far too many people are over-using water,” Johnson said, adding that local landscapers can help calculate how much water a yard needs, or come up with plans for attractive but water efficient landscaping.
All this and more is part of what Veldhuis called “an all-out effort to do the right thing.”
Blocking an enzyme called phosphodiesterase-4 (PDE4) may be useful in the treatment of dry mouth and cystic fibrosis (CF), new preclinical research suggests.
PDE4 is an enzyme that helps to modulate the activity of certain signaling molecules within cells. PDE4 is thought to promote inflammation, but the enzyme’s effects are largely dependent on the particular biological context in which it is activated. Researchers are working to understand the role of PDE4 in various diseases, and how it might be therapeutically targeted.
Abigail Boyd and other scientists at the University of South Alabama were working to test the effects of blocking PDE4 during bacterial lung infections in mice, when they noticed something unexpected: when the mice were treated with a PDE4 inhibitor, they started to salivate abnormally.
This led the researchers to wonder if PDE4 inhibitors might be useful in the treatment of dry mouth, where insufficient saliva is produced.
“Saliva, while often taken for granted, is indispensable for oral health and overall well-being,” Boyd, a PhD student, said in a press release.
It is estimated that more than one in 10 people will experience dry mouth at some point in their life. Dry mouth can be caused by certain health conditions (e.g., Sjögren’s syndrome) and by some medical treatments, such as radiation for cancer. Dry mouth also may develop over the normal course of aging.
“New ways to treat dry mouth are needed since treatment options are currently limited,” according to Boyd.
In experiments in mice, Boyd and colleagues tested several kinds of PDE4 inhibitors, including roflumilast, which is approved under the brand name Daliresp as a treatment for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. They demonstrated that PDE4 inhibitors increase salivation by blocking the enzyme’s activity in the salivary glands, which make saliva, and the autonomic nervous system — the part of the nervous system that regulates involuntary bodily processes such as breathing and digestion.
The known inflammation-modulating activity of PDE4 also may play a role.
“Although the causes of salivary gland dysfunction are varied, there is often an inflammatory component. Thus, in addition to stimulating salivary secretions, PDE4 inhibition may also exert therapeutic benefits by alleviating the inflammatory responses that cause salivary gland dysfunction,” Boyd said.
The investigators also tested the effect of PDE4 inhibition in a mouse model of CF, which is caused by a functional lack of the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) protein. The scientists demonstrated that PDE4 controls CFTR-dependent salivation in mice. That suggests this strategy might have therapeutic benefit in treating CF.
“Our data identify PDE4 as a critical regulator of CFTR function in an in vivo model and suggests a therapeutic potential of PDE4 inhibition to alleviate CFTR hypofunction [decreased function] in cystic fibrosis,” the team wrote.
Author Details
Marisa, a science writer, holds an MS in Cellular and Molecular Pathology from the University of Pittsburgh, where she studied novel genetic drivers of ovarian cancer. She specializes in cancer biology, immunology, and genetics. Marisa began working with BioNews in 2018, and has written about science and health for SelfHacked and the Genetics Society of America. She also writes/composes musicals and coaches the University of Pittsburgh fencing club.
Total Posts: 40
José is a science news writer with a PhD in Neuroscience from Universidade of Porto, in Portugal. He has studied Biochemistry also at Universidade do Porto and was a postdoctoral associate at Weill Cornell Medicine, in New York, and at The University of Western Ontario, in London, Ontario. His work ranged from the association of central cardiovascular and pain control to the neurobiological basis of hypertension, and the molecular pathways driving Alzheimer’s disease.
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Marisa, a science writer, holds an MS in Cellular and Molecular Pathology from the University of Pittsburgh, where she studied novel genetic drivers of ovarian cancer. She specializes in cancer biology, immunology, and genetics. Marisa began working with BioNews in 2018, and has written about science and health for SelfHacked and the Genetics Society of America. She also writes/composes musicals and coaches the University of Pittsburgh fencing club.
Wine: 2018 Zanon Dry Creek Valley Cabernet Sauvignon
Price: $24.99
Availability: Giant Eagle Market District stores at Kingsdale, Perimeter Loop and Grandview Yard; Gentile’s Wine Sellers; Village Wine Shop & Bistro; Hills Market North (Olentangy River Road); and Annie’s Wine Cottage
Aroma: complex scents of can fruits, blueberry and well-integrated American and French oak
Flavor: Intensely flavorful with fresh and dried berries, cocoa, with hints of leather and cedar.
Notes: This is Columbus wine entrepreneur Scott Zanon’s first venture into cabernet sauvignon. According to Zanon, it includes all five traditional Bordeaux grapes (cabernet sauvignon, merlot, cabernet franc, petit verdot and malbec), contributing to the many layers of tastes of this darkly colored, bold red wine.
Unsettled Weather Next Week: The weather pattern is looking more unsettled with several rounds of showers and storms for the first half of next week. Temperatures are forecast to climb into the low to mid 80s next Monday and Tuesday. With enough heat and storms around, we can’t rule out the threat for strong thunderstorms through next Wednesday. Main threat could be strong winds and hail. I can’t rule out the chance to see an organized severe threat with a line of storms possibly moving through our area next Tuesday or Wednesday. Just note that the forecast will likely change over the next several days. We’ll likely have a better idea of the weather pattern for next week by this weekend. Once a cold front moves into our area by the second half of next week, we may trend drier and slightly cooler. Make sure you download the WBRC First Alert Weather App for the latest weather information.
Not bad overall today with highs climbing to near our seasonal norm of 60s.
Tonight, we'll cool off into the low to mid 40s. Normal low for this time of year is now 44. Skies will remain cloudy.
If you liked Tuesday, then you'll enjoy the next couple of days around Western WA. Most of us will start our days a bit cloudy, but throughout the day skies will clear out to partly sunny. Highs will jump above average into the mid to upper 60s Wednesday and check out Thursday... we're going with 73! Nice and warm, but don't get used to it! We're tracking change for the weekend!
By late Thursday night our next disturbance moves inland off the NW WA Coast. This system will deliver rain and drop our temperatures back down to the upper 50s to low 60s, near normal.
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There will be dry periods as we roll through the weekend. Most to the south will wake up to just a few scattered showers while North Sounders will see a little more rain as they get their day going.
Overall there isn't a huge amount of rain to tally up, but anything that falls in the bucket at SeaTac is welcomed since we are a bit behind on rain totals this month.
Between late Thursday into late Sunday night we'll see anywhere from .35" to .50" around the Central Sound.
At this point we are going with a roof closed kind of night at T-Mobile Park as the Mariners return home to host the Angels Friday night. Saturday showers will become scattered and by Sunday we'll see most showers fall apart with a few cells clinging over the mountains. Around dinner time Snohomish County shower activity may pop back up for a bit before drying out.
As we start the work week more rain comes our way. By 8am most of us will see showers for the morning commute and hang with us through the evening hours. Highs land below normal, in the upper 50s. We dry out overnight into Tuesday. A few isolated showers may find their way back into the lowlands, otherwise most showers will hang over the Cascades. Highs jump into the low to mid 60s!
Enjoy! Have a great rest of the week! ~Erin Mayovsky, Q13 Forecaster
