A team of researchers say the groundwater depletion rate around the world has accelerated to a point where the resource could disappear over the next several decades.
Lead researcher is Dr. Jay Famiglietti, professor emeritus in hydrology at the University of Saskatchewan, who says they are using a specialized NASA satellite mission that has made a discovery about the aquifers which supply California’s Central Valley region. That area is where most of the produce is grown which is consumed across North America. To do that it relies heavily on aquifers – as much as 100 per cent during droughts.
He says the region is the canary in the mine and the drawdown of this non-renewable resource is completely unstainable. Dr. Famiglietti says in Canada we need to look at the prairies and talk about expanding food production and then do the necessary assessments.
“And consider climate change and consider all the water that it takes to grow the food we want to grow and then make decisions based managing that water supply sustainably.”
He says you can’t manage what you don’t measure.
“What are the priorities for allocating this groundwater, how are we going to do it most efficiently and then start thinking about regulations and policies that can help enforce that.”
Dr. Famiglietti says if the groundwater in California’s Central Valley region disappears so does food production. Some of the things to contemplate include more localized food production and an understanding that having strawberries in Saskatoon in February is not necessary especially when you consider the input from the water, to what it takes to truck product to Canada, and then the ensuing food waste which occurs. Today (Wednesday) is World Water Day.
Dr. Jay Famiglietti says groundwater is a non-renewable resource and it is being mined on an industrial scale. As well, a tremendous amount of groundwater around the world is used as food production with about 50 per cent of irrigation around the world coming from groundwater. He says about a third of the global population use groundwater for drinking water which is also true in Canada where about 50 per cent of drinking water is from ground water.
