Latest news with #JayFamiglietti
Daily Mail
a day ago
- Business
- Daily Mail
40m Americans at risk of having no water as vital source is VANISHING... see if your hometown is in danger
Water in the Colorado River Basin, a vital source for over 40 million people, has vanished at an alarming pace over the past 20 years, a new study has found. The Colorado River Basin spans over 246,000 square miles and supplies water to seven US states, including Colorado, New Mexico, Wyoming, Arizona, Nevada, and California. Researchers used more than two decades of satellite data to track water loss in the region. Between April 2002 and October 2024, the basin lost more than 13 trillion gallons of freshwater that is nearly two-thirds of it from underground reserves. Since 2003, nearly 28 million acre-feet of groundwater roughly the full capacity of Lake Mead has depleted, driven by unregulated pumping and drought. They used data from NASA to monitor underground water loss. It shows that since 2015, the groundwater has been depleting 2.4 times faster than surface water, marking a sharp acceleration in water loss. The groundwater loss is driven largely by over-pumping in the Lower Colorado River Basin, particularly in Arizona, Nevada, and California where regulation is minimal or nonexistent. Professor Jay Famiglietti, the study's senior from Arizona State University, said: 'Everyone in the US should be worried about it, because we grow a lot of food in the Colorado River Basin and that's food that's used all over the entire country.' The Colorado River and its underground supply support everything from drinking water for cities like Los Angeles and Phoenix to massive agricultural operations growing water-heavy crops like alfalfa, much of which is exported. 'Over-pumping is the main cause of groundwater losses over the past 20 years,' Professor Famiglietti said. 'There's nothing illegal about it, it's just unprotected.' The Colorado River Basin has long depended on snowmelt from the Rocky Mountains to refill its rivers, reservoirs, and aquifers. But rising temperatures and droughts, driven by climate change, are shrinking snowpack and reducing surface water flow. The decreasing supply of surface water is visually apparent throughout the region. Lake Powell and Lake Mead have seen sharply falling levels, and the Colorado River's overall flow has diminished, a trend researchers say will likely continue if warming intensifies. As surface water becomes less reliable, cities and farms are leaning more heavily on groundwater but that safety net is also collapsing. 'We used to say the Colorado River is the lifeblood of the western US,' Professor Famiglietti told The Guardian. 'Now it's becoming clear that groundwater is the lifeblood and it's vanishing.' The study highlights that the Lower Basin including Arizona, Nevada, and parts of California has been hit hardest. Groundwater accounts for more than 71 percent of total water loss in that region. Arizona in particular faces critical risk. Outside of designated management areas, groundwater pumping remains largely unregulated. As a result, wells are drying up, pumping costs are rising, and food security is under growing threat. As groundwater vanishes, wells run dry, pumping costs rise, and food security is threatened. About 80 percent of the Colorado River Basin's water goes to agriculture, supporting a $1.4 billion industry in Arizona alone, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The new study conducted by Arizona State University offers one of the most detailed looks yet at water loss in the Colorado River Basin. Since 2015, most of the Colorado River Basin's freshwater loss has been driven by aggressive groundwater pumping in Arizona, where the absence of statewide regulations outside designated Active Management Areas has allowed unchecked extraction for agriculture and growing urban demand. The research used satellite-based gravity data to measure changes in total water storage including snow, surface water, soil moisture, and groundwater. The Lower Basin, which includes Arizona, Nevada, and parts of California, was hit hardest, with groundwater making up more than 71 percent of its total water loss. This isn't the first warning. Previous studies using NASA's data have documented steady groundwater declines in the region between 2003 and 2014. But the latest research confirms that the pace of depletion has accelerated, especially since 2015. The Colorado River's flow has dropped 13 percent below its 20th-century average in recent years, and if current warming trends continue, experts warn it could shrink by as much as 30 percent by mid-century. States in the region were forced to reach a federal agreement in 2023 to limit water usage and try to protect the river's supply. The more water that is lost from the river, Professor Famigletti told the Washington Post, 'the more pressure there's going to be on the groundwater' in the basin. 'And then,' he said, 'it becomes a ticking time bomb.'
Mint
a day ago
- Science
- Mint
Arizona's Water Is Vanishing Before AI Gets a Crack at It
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- While we worry about the growing threat of robots guzzling up America's groundwater, we can't ignore the risk that cows will consume it all first. A new study this week by researchers at Arizona State University put the depth of our water problem in perspective. It found that groundwater in the lower Colorado River basin — a region filling up with both data centers for artificial intelligence and alfalfa farms to feed cows — is being depleted far more quickly than surface water from reservoirs such as Lake Mead and Lake Powell, which are also vanishing rapidly. Nearly 28 million acre-feet of water has disappeared from aquifers since 2003, satellite measurements suggest, compared with about 14 million acre-feet from surface reservoirs. The vast majority of this water was underneath Arizona, 60% of which is suffering from extreme drought after its hottest, driest stretch in recorded history. One acre-foot of water is enough to flood an acre of land, or one American football field, with a foot of water. Twenty-eight million acre-feet is roughly the entire capacity of Lake Mead, the biggest reservoir in the US, which provides water for 20 million Americans. The actual Lake Mead receives a lot more attention. The white 'bathtub ring' showing how far its water line has fallen — it's at just 32% of capacity as of this writing — has long demonstrated that a notoriously dry region is getting even thirstier as the planet heats up and droughts become more frequent and intense. But quietly, below the ground, one entire Lake Mead has already disappeared. It will take millennia to replenish. 'People used to say the Colorado River was the lifeblood of the Southwest US,' Arizona State professor Jay Famiglietti, the study's senior author, told me. 'Now it's the groundwater. We need to make sure we take precautions to sustain that groundwater for multiple generations in the future.' The report comes at a time of growing alarm about the water and power demands of the AI boom. Every time you ask a robot to write your Ethics 101 term paper or generate one of those brainrot videos all the kids are watching these days, a data center somewhere takes a drink (essentially). Water is used to cool the servers cooking up this slop, and it's also used in generating the electricity that powers those massive computers. A study last year by the University of California, Riverside, for the Washington Post estimated that one 100-word email written by ChatGPT consumes more than a 16-ounce bottle of water. By 2028, US data centers could swallow 74 billion gallons of water per year, up from less than 6 billion in 2014, according to a December study by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. And those servers are thirstier depending on where they're situated. In Arizona, that same 100-word email would consume about two bottles of water, according to the Post/UC Riverside study. Unfortunately, Arizona and other desert locales are prime real estate for data centers. The Grand Canyon State is home to 26 new server farms built or planned since 2022, according to Bloomberg News, joining hundreds of others cropping up in areas of the US under high water stress, as defined by the nonprofit World Resources Institute. Friendly regulation, abundant empty land, low humidity and a relative lack of natural disasters (unless you count flesh-searing heat) help explain Arizona's allure to server farmers. They also help explain its allure to farmer farmers — whose runaway water use makes AI look as water-stingy as a Dune fremen in comparison. Arizona farms used about 4 billion gallons of water every day, on average, between 2010 and 2020, according to a US Geological Survey report, or nearly 1.5 trillion gallons a year, accounting for 72% of the state's total water use. Those 74 billion gallons that US data centers might drink in 2028 wouldn't keep Arizona farms in business for a month. (Heck, golf-course irrigation in Maricopa County alone used nearly 31 billion gallons in 2015, according to that USGS report.) And most of this water is used to grow food for cows. A study last year in the journal Communications Earth & Environment found nearly a third of all Colorado River water use — about 6.24 million acre-feet per year, on average, or nearly a quarter of one whole Lake Mead — irrigated alfalfa and grass hay between 2000 and 2019. All other crops used just 3.85 million acre-feet, roughly matching the water used by cities. All that hay is used to feed beef and dairy cows. And about a fifth of it grown in seven Western states is exported to China, Japan, Saudi Arabia and other countries, according to a 2023 study by University of Arizona researchers. In other words, we are literally exporting our dwindling water supply. Pumping groundwater makes the land above it sink. A study earlier this month in the journal Nature found that the 28 most populous US cities were sinking to some degree or another, mostly because of groundwater depletion. They have nothing on Arizona, parts of which have fallen as much as 18 feet over several decades as the water disappeared beneath them. Wells have gone dry, and giant fissures have opened in the land, wrecking homes and infrastructure. Despite all the damage their pumping wreaks, farmers and the politicians supporting them fight furiously for their right to keep doing it. Though Arizona has some sound water-management practices, including designated water-management areas that have helped stop the bleeding in Phoenix, Tucson and other places, most of the state's groundwater is still unregulated. When Governor Katie Hobbs proposed creating a new management area in the Willcox Basin in the southeast corner of the state, where the land is sinking by 3 ½ inches a year, the farmers protested. To Hobbs' credit, she created the management area anyway. Now the locals are fighting a proposal to cut their groundwater use by 50% in 50 years. President Donald Trump has made matters worse by freezing $4 billion in Inflation Reduction Act funding earmarked for protecting the Colorado River. Securing the water supply of millions of Americans in one the fastest-growing regions in the country deserves more research and funding, not less. Other possible solutions include encouraging farmers to fallow their land, transition to less-thirsty crops or sell their water rights to urban developers. And of course, Americans could always stand to eat much less beef. As for those robots, they might have an easier time using less water. Microsoft Corp. already has plans for data centers that consume none at all. Competitors will probably want to follow suit, if only to calm a growing backlash. And if we must live with AI, then maybe we can at least get it to figure out how to spend less water on cows. More From Bloomberg Opinion: This column reflects the personal views of the author and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners. Mark Gongloff is a Bloomberg Opinion editor and columnist covering climate change. He previously worked for the Huffington Post and the Wall Street Journal. More stories like this are available on
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
The Colorado River Basin has lost as much groundwater as the entire volume of Lake Mead
Deep below the surface of the ground in one of the driest parts of the country, there is a looming problem: The water is running out — but not the kind that fills lakes, streams and reservoirs. The amount of groundwater that has been pumped out of the Colorado River Basin since 2003 is enough to fill Lake Mead, researchers report in a study published earlier this week. Most of that water was used to irrigate fields of alfalfa and vegetables grown in the desert Southwest. No one knows exactly how much is left, but the study, published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, shows an alarming rate of withdrawal of a vital water source for a region that could also see its supply of Colorado River water shrink. 'We're using it faster and faster,' said Jay Famiglietti, an Arizona State University professor and the study's senior author. In the past two decades, groundwater basins – or large, underground aquifers – lost more than twice the amount of water that was taken out of major surface reservoirs, Famiglietti's team found, like Mead and Lake Powell, which themselves have seen water levels crash. The Arizona State University research team measured more than two decades of NASA satellite observations and used land modeling to trace how groundwater tables in the Colorado River basin were dwindling. The team focused mostly on Arizona, a state that is particularly vulnerable to future cutbacks on the Colorado River. Groundwater makes up about 35% of the total water supply for Arizona, said Sarah Porter, director of the Kyl Center for Water Policy at Arizona State University, who was not directly involved in the study. The study found groundwater tables in the Lower Colorado River basin, and Arizona in particular, have declined significantly in the last decade. The problem is especially pronounced in Arizona's rural areas, many of which don't have groundwater regulations, and little backup supply from rivers. With wells in rural Arizona increasingly running dry, farmers and homeowners now drill thousands of feet into the ground to access water. Scientists don't know exactly how much groundwater is left in Arizona, Famiglietti added, but the signs are troubling. 'We have seen dry stream beds for decades,' he said. 'That's an indication that the connection between groundwater and rivers has been lost.' Some land has also begun to cave in, with deep fissures forming in parts of the state as ground water has been pumped out. This is not unique to Arizona, Famiglietti said, with similar signs of disappearing groundwater happening in the agriculture-heavy Central Valley in California. Porter said the results illuminate the magnitude of the groundwater crisis in the Southwest, which is particularly helpful for state officials and lawmakers. 'There are a lot of people who aren't sure if we have a serious situation with respect to groundwater, because groundwater is hidden,' Porter said. 'The value of the study is that it really adds a lot of information to the picture.' Groundwater may be hidden, but scientists know with relative certainty that once it is pumped out, it won't be able to recharge within our lifetimes. Much of it was deposited tens or hundreds of thousands of years ago. 'It takes geologic time' to refill these deep aquifers — meaning thousands of years — 'and we as humans have more or less been burning through it in the last over the last century,' Famiglietti said. Famiglietti warned the groundwater situation could worsen if the state's allocation of Colorado River water is further decreased, a decision that could be made in the next two years. If Arizona's Colorado River water allocation was cut to zero, 'we could burn through the available groundwater in 50 years,' Famiglietti said. 'We're talking about decades. That's scary. No one wants that to happen.' But Porter pushed back on that characterization, pointing out that Arizona cities have another stable water supply—the Salt River. Porter added cities like Phoenix and Tucson are storing groundwater and have regulations designed to keep it from running out. Arizona has had a groundwater management law in place since 1980. 'We're not expecting that the whole state would turn to groundwater,' Porter said. Famiglietti said he hopes the study will prompt discussions over how to more effectively manage groundwater use in the region, especially from agriculture, which uses the lion's share of water. Much of Arizona's crops are exported, either to other states or, as is the case with alfalfa, internationally. Famiglietti called it the 'absolutely biggest' choice that policymakers will have to decide. 'Agriculture just uses so much water,' Famiglietti said. 'Are we going to plan to continue to grow as much food? Are we losing food that's important for the state, that's important for the country, or is it alfalfa that's being shipped to Saudi Arabia?'
CNN
3 days ago
- Business
- CNN
The Colorado River Basin has lost as much groundwater as the entire volume of Lake Mead
Deep below the surface of the ground in one of the driest parts of the country, there is a looming problem: The water is running out — but not the kind that fills lakes, streams and reservoirs. The amount of groundwater that has been pumped out of the Colorado River Basin since 2003 is enough to fill Lake Mead, researchers report in a study published earlier this week. Most of that water was used to irrigate fields of alfalfa and vegetables grown in the desert Southwest. No one knows exactly how much is left, but the study, published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, shows an alarming rate of withdrawal of a vital water source for a region that could also see its supply of Colorado River water shrink. 'We're using it faster and faster,' said Jay Famiglietti, an Arizona State University professor and the study's senior author. In the past two decades, groundwater basins – or large, underground aquifers – lost more than twice the amount of water that was taken out of major surface reservoirs, Famiglietti's team found, like Mead and Lake Powell, which themselves have seen water levels crash. The Arizona State University research team measured more than two decades of NASA satellite observations and used land modeling to trace how groundwater tables in the Colorado River basin were dwindling. The team focused mostly on Arizona, a state that is particularly vulnerable to future cutbacks on the Colorado River. Groundwater makes up about 35% of the total water supply for Arizona, said Sarah Porter, director of the Kyl Center for Water Policy at Arizona State University, who was not directly involved in the study. The study found groundwater tables in the Lower Colorado River basin, and Arizona in particular, have declined significantly in the last decade. The problem is especially pronounced in Arizona's rural areas, many of which don't have groundwater regulations, and little backup supply from rivers. With wells in rural Arizona increasingly running dry, farmers and homeowners now drill thousands of feet into the ground to access water. Scientists don't know exactly how much groundwater is left in Arizona, Famiglietti added, but the signs are troubling. 'We have seen dry stream beds for decades,' he said. 'That's an indication that the connection between groundwater and rivers has been lost.' Some land has also begun to cave in, with deep fissures forming in parts of the state as ground water has been pumped out. This is not unique to Arizona, Famiglietti said, with similar signs of disappearing groundwater happening in the agriculture-heavy Central Valley in California. Porter said the results illuminate the magnitude of the groundwater crisis in the Southwest, which is particularly helpful for state officials and lawmakers. 'There are a lot of people who aren't sure if we have a serious situation with respect to groundwater, because groundwater is hidden,' Porter said. 'The value of the study is that it really adds a lot of information to the picture.' Groundwater may be hidden, but scientists know with relative certainty that once it is pumped out, it won't be able to recharge within our lifetimes. Much of it was deposited tens or hundreds of thousands of years ago. 'It takes geologic time' to refill these deep aquifers — meaning thousands of years — 'and we as humans have more or less been burning through it in the last over the last century,' Famiglietti said. Famiglietti warned the groundwater situation could worsen if the state's allocation of Colorado River water is further decreased, a decision that could be made in the next two years. If Arizona's Colorado River water allocation was cut to zero, 'we could burn through the available groundwater in 50 years,' Famiglietti said. 'We're talking about decades. That's scary. No one wants that to happen.' But Porter pushed back on that characterization, pointing out that Arizona cities have another stable water supply—the Salt River. Porter added cities like Phoenix and Tucson are storing groundwater and have regulations designed to keep it from running out. Arizona has had a groundwater management law in place since 1980. 'We're not expecting that the whole state would turn to groundwater,' Porter said. Famiglietti said he hopes the study will prompt discussions over how to more effectively manage groundwater use in the region, especially from agriculture, which uses the lion's share of water. Much of Arizona's crops are exported, either to other states or, as is the case with alfalfa, internationally. Famiglietti called it the 'absolutely biggest' choice that policymakers will have to decide. 'Agriculture just uses so much water,' Famiglietti said. 'Are we going to plan to continue to grow as much food? Are we losing food that's important for the state, that's important for the country, or is it alfalfa that's being shipped to Saudi Arabia?'
The Guardian
7 days ago
- Business
- The Guardian
Colorado River basin has lost nearly the equivalent of an underground Lake Mead
The Colorado River basin has lost 27.8m acre-feet of groundwater in the past 20 years, an amount of water nearly equivalent to the full capacity of Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the United States, a new study has found. The research findings, based on Nasa satellite imagery from across the south-west, highlight the scale of the ongoing water crisis in the region, as both groundwater and surface water are being severely depleted. 'Groundwater is disappearing 2.4 times faster than the surface water,' said Jay Famiglietti, a hydrologist at Arizona State University and the study's senior author. 'Everyone in the US should be worried about it, because we grow a lot of food in the Colorado River basin, and that's food that's used all over the entire country,' he added. 'These days, we're also supporting a number of data centers and computer chip manufacturers, and these are essential to our economy.' The Colorado River basin provides water to approximately 40 million people across seven US states, as well as to millions of acres of farmland. Most of the groundwater losses since 2003 occurred in the Lower Colorado River basin, including Arizona, Nevada and California, the study found. The decreasing availability of surface water is easy to visualize across the west. There are the stark photographs of the dropping levels of water in Lake Powell and Lake Mead, and images of the Colorado River, whose flow has decreased approximately 20% in the past century. But groundwater is different, Famiglietti said: 'It's invisible. It's mysterious. The average citizen doesn't really understand it.' With less visibility has come less regulation: California only instituted statewide management of its groundwater in 2014, and before that, groundwater use was largely unregulated. Arizona, which has seen big groundwater decreases, still does not regulate groundwater usage in the majority of the state, Famiglietti said, which means that most property-owners can simply pump out as much groundwater as they want. 'Overpumping' is the main cause of groundwater losses over the past 20 years, he said. 'There's nothing illegal about it, it's just unprotected.' Most water across the west is used for agriculture, and as 'large-scale industrial farming' has expanded in the south-west, and particularly in Arizona, so have the resources for farmers to dig deeper and bigger wells to extract groundwater, Famiglietti said. In Arizona, many of the new farms grow alfalfa, which is used as hay to feed cows. Data centers, though a much smaller overall factor than agriculture, also are a growing business that require water. The new study found that the depletion of water storage in the Colorado River basin has sped up in the past decade. Since 2015, the basin has been losing freshwater at a rate three times faster than in the decade before, driven mostly by groundwater depletion in Arizona. While the researchers are advocating for better management of groundwater supplies in the future, Famiglietti also said that the efficacy of groundwater regulations so far was still unclear. The effects of the climate crisis, including rising average temperatures and more frequent and severe droughts, are expected to make the region's water shortages worse in the future.
