Groundwater decline in Nebraska in 2013 'unprecedented'
Source: Omaha World Herald
By Joe Duggan
LINCOLN Groundwater in Nebraska dropped by unprecedented levels last year as farmers stepped up irrigation in response to record drought and heat in 2012.
Underground water tables declined in 90 of the state's 93 counties between spring 2012 and spring 2013, said Aaron Young, groundwater resources coordinator for the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Aquifers dropped 2.5 feet on average.
An average one-year decline of this magnitude has never been recorded before in the state, Young said Wednesday, referring to groundwater monitoring that has been done since 1930.
Dean Edson, director of the Nebraska Association of Resources Districts, cautioned that one year of data does not signal a water crisis.
FULL story at link.
Read more: http://www.omaha.com/article/20140206/NEWS/140209124/1016#groundwater-decline-in-nebraska-in-2013-unprecedented
http://www.hpwd.com/aquifers/ogallala-aquifer
Ogallala Aquifer
The Ogallala aquifer (pronounced OH-GA-LA-LA) is one of the largest aquifer systems in the world. It stretches across all or portions of eight states generally from north to south to include South Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming, Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Texas and underlies about 174,000 square miles. N.H. Darton is credited with describing and naming the formation in 1899 after the town of Ogallala, Nebraska.
The Ogallala aquifer lies relatively near the land surface in most of the above-described area with a maximum thickness of about 1,000 feet with a few hundred feet more the norm. Even in those areas of only a few feet of thickness, the aquifer can almost always be counted on to yield water to a well drilled into it. Some wells yield only a few gallons of water per minute, while others yield 1,000 gallons of water per minute or more. The Ogallala aquifer not only includes the portion of the Ogallala that is saturated with water, but may also include saturated portions of the overlying and underlying formations that are hydraulically connected to the Ogallala.
Water in the Ogallala Aquifer on the Southern High Plains flows from northwest to southeast at about 150 feet per year under natural conditions. This rate of movement can be altered by discharge from the aquifer by pumping wells.
Deposition of the Ogallala Formation began 10 to 12 million years ago during late Tertiary (Miocene/Pliocene) geologic time. Sand, gravel, silt, and clay eroded from upland areas to the west and north were deposited over the erosional land surface of the present-day High Plains by primarily eastward flowing streams. The surface on which the sediments were deposited would have been much like the present area located east of the High Plains escarpment characterized by low hills, relatively shallow valleys, and meandering streams.
FULL info at link.
Sunlei
(22,651 posts)dipsydoodle
(42,239 posts)Has the UK truly 'stocked up' on rainwater ?
Hard as it is to believe now, two years ago the UK was seriously preparing for drought. Since then there's been a lot of rain, so does it mean there won't be hosepipe bans for many years?
It's been wet. December last year was the sixth wettest on record for the UK and the wettest ever measured in Scotland. There was no let-up - January this year was the wettest in southern England since records began in 1910.
All this after a generally wet 18 months means that where there isn't flooding, the ground is sodden.
Yet not too long ago the UK suffered from wildfires, hosepipe bans and fears over drying aquifers. Between April 2010 and March 2012 England and Wales experienced one of the 10 worst droughts of the last 100 years, according to the Met Office.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-26049927
SamKnause
(13,037 posts)Please use all the water available for you to use and waste.
Turn on all the lights in your houses.
Turn up the thermostats in your houses.
Please stop recycling.
The US does not need to worry about anything.
"God" will take care of the US.
We are a "Christian" nation.
We are above reproach.
Our small military needs all the resources available.
Our golf courses need water.
Las Vegas needs to light up the night sky.
Our billionaires, millionaires, and global corporations need our resources more than the useless mooching 99%.
n2doc
(47,953 posts)I wish he would rapture all the asses so the sane people could address the problems facing this world.
elias7
(3,976 posts)The economic impact will be so huge-- from drought and loss of the farming industry to having wall street, DC, LA and Boston underwater from rising sea levels. How could the economic powers that be not try to avert catastrophe for their wallets?
n2doc
(47,953 posts)Disruption is what makes the big bucks. The housing market was disrupted, banks made trillions and continue to do so off of selling and buying distressed real estate. The big oil companies know what's coming and already are working on making money off of it.
Commodity traders are making a killing of of skyrocketing food prices.
RC
(25,592 posts)The will worry about their profits on the bottom line after that, when this one passes.
lunasun
(21,646 posts)but what about tomorrow?
and I do not believe that faith in Jesus janitor making it all right is on their minds
The greed is what drives them
along with ego that they can outsmart /buy out/hide out from
mother nature at some point
wait til they realize it will be just a ship of fools going here then going there to avoid the inevitable
if things do not change it will catch up with all
The Bushes have that big water table in SA waiting for them for example
http://climatesoscanada.org/blog/2013/02/15/profiting-from-your-thirst-as-global-elite-rush-to-control-water-worldwide/
Sunlei
(22,651 posts)Plenty of other 3rd worldish countries to frack, drill and mine. plenty of other countries that won't mind mine runoff, 10,000 cow 'dairy' ,a million hen egg 'farm' or a 10 square mile 'farmer'. billions of people who will work for a dollar (or less) a day.
Only the 'little' people will be left behind to deal with the floods, or dust bowls, 'extreme weather' or toxic lands. The "wallets" don't live on their business property.
Javaman
(62,439 posts)they employ fracking to squeeze out fossil fuels with water.
they use up water to get fossil fuels.
they squeeze out fossil fuels because there ins't enough to go around via regular sources.
at some point, they will either run out of water to frack or run out of "frackable" areas because there is no more fossil fuels.
in the end, we will end up thirsty and in the dark.
I no longer weep for our future, I've run out of tears.
AngryAmish
(25,704 posts)2012 was a brutal drought. 2013 was better and a lot of the Colorado flood water from last fall got impounded I think.
But Hooker County is cattle country and does not drink as much as cropland. Golf Courses looked the same.
Titonwan
(785 posts)How can people deny that fracking is causing earthquakes and finding it's way into the groundwater? And I wonder if this fracturing might make the aquifers flood underground caverns and displacing all the air.
As convenient as this is for 'easy' natural gas/oil- in the long run- it's gonna be a real killer of many things. One of them, us.
Off topic question: I might want to add a newsworthy thread but don't want to (or cannot) use "Latest Breaking News". How do you place an article in "Trending Now" or "Greatest Threads" or "The Left Column"? What tabs need pushed, etc. Thanks in advance!
L0oniX
(31,493 posts)It is doomed IMO
HoosierCowboy
(561 posts)...will Red State farmers be lining up for a government hand out? As soon as they figure out how to blame it on liberals, same sex marriage and abortion
You Betcha!
Spider Jerusalem
(21,786 posts)When the water is gone? Expect food shortages, rationing, riots and famine. Which will affect red and blue states alike, I'm sure.
Sunlei
(22,651 posts)greatlaurel
(2,004 posts)I do not have the exact figure, but it is way too high. Meanwhile, we keep paving over, fracking, strip mining, and contaminating perfectly good farmland in the eastern US. The eastern US is blessed with plentiful rainfall, but we continue to subsidize and farm marginal lands that require irrigation. Irrigation increases salt levels in the soils and can only be done for a few decades until the soil is poisoned by chemicals and nothing will grow, even the native species.
We are in a lot bigger trouble than people realize. People just call me an alarmist or a crazy tree hugger.
Myrina
(12,296 posts).... it's gotta melt & run off or soak in somewhere. I remember when I was little, when NE Wisconsin got unholy shitloads of snow, they'd front end load piles into dump trucks and dump it in the nearest river.