Aug 12 2009
From The Space Library
NASA’s GSFC announced the findings of a study that had investigated diminishing groundwater levels in India. Using data provided by the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE), the research team, led by NASA hydrologist Matthew Rodell of GSFC, had found that, despite no shortage of rainfall, Indians were consuming groundwater in northern India faster than it could be replenished—primarily using rain to irrigate agricultural crops. The twin GRACE satellites, which NASA and the German Aerospace Center had launched in 2002, orbited miles (483 kilometers) above Earth, detecting tiny changes in Earth’s gravity field and associated mass distribution, including water masses stored above or below Earth’s surface. Rodell’s team had analyzed six years of monthly GRACE gravity data, producing a timed series of changes in water storage beneath the northern Indian states of Rajasthan, Punjab, and Haryana. The analysis showed that groundwater levels had been declining by an average of 1 meter (3 feet) every three years—more than 109 cubic kilometers (26 cubic miles) of groundwater had disappeared between 2002 and 2008. Rodell explained that, although the absolute volume of water in the Northern Indian aquifers is unknown, the GRACE analysis had provided strong evidence that current rates of water extraction were unsustainable.
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, “NASA Satellites Unlock Secret to Northern India’s Vanishing Water,” GSFC news release, 12 August 2009, http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/india_water.html (accessed 13 September 2011); Tim Sullivan for Associated Press, “Study Sees Dramatic Drop in Indian Groundwater,” 13 August 2009.
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