Chinmaya IAS Academy – Current Affairs Chinmaya IAS Academy – Current Affairs
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Future generations face an environmental “time bomb” as the world’s groundwater systems take decades to respond to the present day impact of climate change, scientists warned on Monday. Groundwater is the largest useable source of freshwater on the planet and more than two billion people rely on it to drink or irrigate crops. It is slowly replenished through rainfall — a process known as recharge — and discharges into lakes, rivers or oceans to maintain an overall balance between water in and water out. Groundwater reserves are already under pressure as the global population explodes and crop production rises in lockstep. But the extreme weather events such as drought and record rainfall — both made worse by our heating planet — could have another long-lasting impact on how quickly reserves replenish, according to a study published in Nature Climate Change . An international team of researchers used computer modelling of groundwater datasets to put a timescale on how reserves may respond to the changing climate. Mark Cuthbert, from Cardiff University’s School of Earth and Ocean Sciences, and his team found that only half of all groundwater supplies are likely to fully replenish or re-balance within the next 100 years — potentially leading to shortages in drier areas. “This could be described as an environmental time bomb because any climate change impacts on recharge occurring now, will only fully impact the baseflow to rivers and wetlands a long time later,” Mr. Cuthbert said. The process through which rainwater is filtered through bedrock and accumulated underground can take centuries and varies greatly by region.
