The water resource is one of the basic necessities of life as it is included in the same league with food, shelter, and clothing. As such, its use and sustainability must be safeguarded at all costs. But in recent times, the opposite seems to be the case as the vital resource continues to be depleted from the face of the earth. These days, it is not uncommon to hear of communities fighting for the precious resource especially in Africa where poor farming methods and deforestation has taken root.
We have also witnessed cases of human-wildlife conflict due to the vital resource. Governments all over the world have been grappling with the idea of conserving their water catchments areas to avoid a situation of severe shortage of water. But what might have gone wrong? All the available data seems to point an accusing finger at aquifer depletion as the most probable cause of the problem. According to Brown (2007), numerous countries, including the USA, China, and India are over pumping aquifers in a desperate attempt to satisfy their ever-rising water needs. This essay will therefore attempt to describe the problem of Aquifer depletion, trace its origins, and also try to locate an effective management and sustainability plan that can be used to fix the problem.
According to Robins (1998), an aquifer is an underground layer of unconsolidated materials such as clay, sand, silt, or gravel, or a layer of water-bearing porous rock from which the collected ground water can be easily and usefully collected or extracted using the water well. It therefore follows that aquifer depletion takes root when the ground water that has been trapped by the permeable rock is withdrawn at a rate greater than its replenishment. In other words, ground water is pumped out in excess of the supply that flows into the basin thereby resulting to depletion or mining of the water resource.
The origin, nature, and composition of aquifers are varied. In Canada for example, aquifers are composed of chunky deposits of gravel and sand brought about by glacial rivers, old deltas, sandstones, and fractured rocks (“Water,” 2008). According to Meyer (1996) increased human activities especially in the urban areas is the root cause of aquifer depletion. Other known causes includes increased farming activities like it is the case in China and India (Brown, 2007), deforestation and poor soil handling. Increased human population is also mentioned as a likely cause. According to Ponce (2006), human intervention had led to a situation by which groundwater is subjected to artificial discharge due to increased socio-economic activities thereby depleting the aquifers.
The problem of Aquifer depletion is a serious one by all standards. As already mentioned, the water resource is a basic resource that people cannot be able to do without There have been reported cases of sea-level rise (Eloise, 2004) and low farm yields in the world’s grain baskets of China, USA, and India (Brown, 2007) due to this problem of Aquifer depletion. As such, it is only imperative that governments and all the stake holders concerned comes up with management and sustainability plans to save aquifers from complete depletion.
Consequently, successful management of the situation will only be achieved through quantifying the aquifer depletion problem in major aquifers throughout the world (Eloise). Governments around the world must work hard to improve on their telemetry and collection of available water-level data, manage their databases effectively, and invest on information system networking to facilitate future efforts necessary to comprehensively map out water-level changes in major aquifers around the world.
In line with this, governments and other stake holders concerned must make concerted efforts to conduct sequential gravity surveys from satellites so as to directly measure and track changes in ground water that has been stored in these aquifers. This must be done in the most accurate and efficient manner possible to ensure that data of water table over large regions is attained in the most comprehensive manner possible. This management technique has the obvious advantage of offering very comprehensive assessments of “sub-surface hydrologic changes through which water managers can respond accordingly” (Eloise, 2004).
They will be able to track changes in water-levels and take precautionary measures to ensure that the situation does not get out of hand. Through this management technique, water managers will also be able to forecast looming changes in the volume of groundwater stored in the aquifers and take necessary measures aimed at avoiding a spillage.
Governments and other stake holders concerned must also embark on environmental conservation measures such as replenishment of trees, proper and efficient land use, and proper management of loose soil cover to ensure that more and more water is trapped into the aquifers. According to Ponce (2006), groundwater may also be recharged or replenished artificially like it is happening in some progressive communities around the world.
In conclusion, it is clear that the excessive and sometimes indiscriminate use of the water resource has led to questions about its sustainability. Water is a vital resource that we cannot afford to cope without and hence governments all over the world must come up with strategies and policies that would ensure that its exploitation will not unduly compromise the principle of sustainable development (Ponce, 2006). It is therefore important that its usage and sustainability be assessed from an interdisciplinary perspective where ecology, climatology, hydrology and geomorphology all play a critical role. In all the activities that the human race engages in, it should be clear that excessive pumping of groundwater can lead to aquifer depletion, a process that can spell doom and tragedy for the human race.
References
Brown, L. (2007). Aquifer Depletion. The Encyclopedia of Earth. Web.
Eloise, K. (2004). Groundwater depletion: Approaches and considerations for the future. Web.
Long, B.R. (2003). Middle East water conflict: the battle over Al-Disi Aquifer. Web.
Meyer, W.B. (1996). Human impact on the earth. Cambridge University Press. Web.
Ponce, V.M. (2006). Groundwater utilization and sustainability. Web.
Robins, N.S. (1998). Groundwater pollution, Aquifer Recharge and Vulnerability. Geological Society of London. Web.
Water – Underground. (2008) Environment Canada. Web.