Past and future contribution of global groundwater depletion to sea-level rise

sea level rise
California, Miramar Beach. sea level rise, beach erosion. Photo courtesy of : © Denis Delestrac

Excerpts;

As people pump groundwater for irrigation, drinking water, and industrial uses, the water doesn’t just seep back into the ground, it also evaporates into the atmosphere, or runs off into rivers and canals, eventually emptying into the world’s oceans. This water adds up, and a new study calculates that by 2050, groundwater pumping will cause a global sea level rise of about 0.8 millimeters per year…

In this study, researchers looked not only at the contribution of groundwater pumping, which they had investigated before, but also at other factors that influence the amount of terrestrial water entering the oceans, including marsh drainage, forest clearing, and new reservoirs…

Read Full Article, AGU

Past and future contribution of global groundwater depletion to sea-level rise, Geophysical Research Letters
Recent studies suggest the increasing contribution of groundwater depletion to global sea-level rise. Groundwater depletion has more than doubled during the last decades, primarily due to increase in water demand…

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