Good friends and smart people Debra Perrone (Stanford University) and Scott
Jasechko (University of Calgary) just informed me of the publication of their new paper: Dry Groundwater Wells in the Western United States, Environ. Res. Lett. 12 (2017)
104002
The online version has supplemental data.
Download Perrone_2017_Environ._Res._Lett._12_104002
Abstract
Declining groundwater levels are common in parts of the western US, but their impact on the ability of wells to pump groundwater is not known. Here we collate groundwater well records for the western United States and present the recorded locations, depths, and purposes of more than two million groundwater wells constructed between 1950 and 2015. We then use the well records to estimate the percentage of wells that were dry during the years 2013–2015. During the two year period, dry wells were concentrated in rural areas with high agricultural productivity, such as parts of the California Central Valley and the High Plains. Our results support anecdotal evidence that wells used for domestic purposes are more susceptible to drying than wells used for agricultural purposes throughout California's Central Valley because the former tend to be shallower. However, this is not the case in all regions. Our findings suggest that declining groundwater levels are threatening drinking water reliability and agricultural productivity, and consequently, have key implications for both domestic and agricultural water security. Ongoing reductions to groundwater storage are drying groundwater wells in the western US, and this manifestation of water scarcity warrants innovative groundwater management transcending status quos.
Cutting to the chase (the hotlines may not work):
Implications for groundwater managementOur main findings—(i) there are a range of data gaps among the various state well construction databases, (ii) 1-in-30 wells constructed between 1950–2015 were likely dry during 2013–2015, and (iii) when agricultural well distributions and domestic well distributions differ significantly, domestic wells are usually shallower, and therefore, disproportionately vulnerable to drying—underscore society's need to improve groundwater management. Groundwater is a public interest resource, meaning that it is publicly owned, in most western states (e.g. Idaho § 42–203A; Kansas § 82a-711(a); Utah § 73-3-8). Consequently, effective groundwater management is important to sustainably serve the public by meeting domestic and agricultural water demands.
Our analysis provides the first continental-scale study of groundwater wells in nearly three decades [23], and represents the first continental-scale examination of groundwater infrastructure impacted by declines in groundwater levels. Dry wells in the United States are not recorded, reported, or analysed comprehensively or across jurisdictional boundaries. For instance, California has a system with publicly available information about water shortages [16], but this system is new as of 2014 and relies on voluntary reporting by households. Some state well construction databases include information about plugged or abandoned wells, but the comprehensiveness of these inventories is unclear [43], and the details about why the wells were plugged or abandoned are often unavailable.
Western US groundwater is a strategic resource used for drinking, sanitation, and hygiene by nearly 10 million people through self-supply wells (data from [15]). Groundwater is also critical to irrigated agriculture, increasing the resilience of agricultural production to drought [7]. It is possible that water users will become more dependent on groundwater as climate warms and the timing and fluxes of river discharges change [37]. If current groundwater management follows 'business-as-usual' scenarios, groundwater resources may not be available to effectively aid climate change adaptation efforts. Groundwater regulation has lagged behind surface water regulation, likely because of the difficulty in characterizing aquifers [44]. Early groundwater legislation, such as common law, focused on 'safe yield', a phrase outdated both in its science and its ability to promote sustainability [45, 46]. Although there has been a widespread movement towards more comprehensive regulatory approaches, one of which is groundwater withdrawal permitting [47], the effectiveness of these approaches is unclear. What is clear, however, is that declining groundwater levels are interfering with well owners' legal rights to withdraw groundwater in many areas across the western US, because the well owner is no longer guaranteed reliable water supplies [14]. Overall, water table declines are drying up groundwater wells, and this manifestation of water scarcity warrants innovative groundwater management transcending status quos.
Their work was covered by Ian James in The Desert Sun - read here.
Great to hear that both Debra and Scott will be moving to UCSB this November.
Ain't big data sweet!
Enjoy - great work!
“One only needs two tools in life: WD-40 to make things go, and duct tape to make them stop.” - G. Weilacher
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