Colorado River basin has lost nearly the equivalent of an underground Lake Mead -- The Guardian

[erronis]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/27/colorado-river-basin-nasa-study
Lois Beckett

Reservoir lost 27.8m acre-feet of groundwater in 20 years, Nasa study finds, vanishing ‘twice as fast as surface water’

See also Zorro's post: https://www.democraticunderground.com/100220346778

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.”

. . .

[marble falls]

1. Heat and drought. Nature is taking it's dessert back, thanks to warming.

[erronis]

2. No just desserts for us! In addition to Ma Nature, Man is doing a whole hell of the damage, all by himself.

[yonder]

3. Wallace Stegner's "Beyond the 100th Meridian" is a cautionary and timeless book.

Both he and Powell foresaw what might happen if we didn't respect The West. I'd guess they are roiling as they rest with regard to the impacts us modern day, short-sighted hoomans ARE causing.

[erronis]

4. Wallace Stegner is one of the best American writers (and teachers) of all time.

He cuts down to the chase very quickly. Angle of Repose.

[yonder]

5. Agreed. The people who studied under him are impressive as well.

AOR was the first book of his I read. I was a goner after that.

[misanthrope]

7. Marc Reisner's "Cadillac Desert" is a good read.

Edward Abbey was a little more fervent in his advocacy.

[sakabatou]

6. Another year of drought