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pm_me_your_rigs t1_j6ekpf1 wrote

Reply to comment by Any-Broccoli-3911 in Eli5....can you dig a well anywhere and hit water...and how did the early ranchers in the West know where to dig for water. Especially in the really dry areas? by pinkshrinkrn

So that map has pretty good quantities of underground water in California yet California goes through droughts every year

So where is the deviation coming from here? Obviously if there was enough water they would be digging down deep enough to get it? Is it just cost prohibitive to dig down deep enough and clean it

Or does that map only show certain times of the year

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Any-Broccoli-3911 t1_j6eladp wrote

They dig to get the water. That's how they use so much water in California's farms.

California is the state that uses the most water. 9% of the water used in the USA is used in California. (It has 12% of the population, so per capita, it's not that much, but it's still a lot of water that gets used in California.)

https://www.usgs.gov/mission-areas/water-resources/science/total-water-use#overview

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nim_opet t1_j6f13j1 wrote

Gotta water all those almonds!

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alaninnz t1_j6f89to wrote

Some of these areas have dropped 20+ feet due to wells for the almond groves.

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Hayduke_Abides t1_j6gm00k wrote

This is also true in the Ogallala Aquifer which underlies large areas of Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas (and other aquifers around the world as well). This isn't a problem unique to California.

In many places, the groundwater withdrawals are outstripping the rate at which these groundwater reservoirs can be replenished by precipitation. Dryer and warmer climates are exacerbating this problem as well. As the interstitial spaces in the aquifers are depleted of water, they lose the structural strength that the water provided and subside. The worst thing is that these losses of interstitial space are likely permanent, so even if the aquifer is re-watered, it will have a lower capacity than it used to have.

We are heavily reliant on groundwater in the US for agriculture and municipal water, and unsustainable groundwater use is a serious problem that is largely overlooked by the media and unfamiliar to most Americans.

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alaninnz t1_j6gzkcu wrote

How anyone thinks this is sustainable is beyond me.

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Warp-n-weft t1_j6g00hs wrote

It is worth noting that underground water isn’t necessarily a renewable resource.

Large amounts of water can be found underground in aquifers but that water can be old. Potentially hundreds of thousands of years old, deposited during the Pleistocene and it’s impressive ice age.

We can, and do, pump ancient water out to use today. But that water may not be able to recharge. Worse is if we experience subsidence of the aquifer. By withdrawing water we shrink the size of the container (the aquifer) and it potential volume cannot be increased. In some places in California the ground has subsided due to water extraction at a rate of a foot annually.

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