Sinking cities, dry wellsprings and empty aquifers. This is what happens when you refuse to admit there’s not enough H20 left under our feet.
In December, scientists at University College London, The Guardian and Watershed Investigations published a worrying analysis of surface and subsurface water retainment across Europe. Simply put, areas of southern and southeastern Europe are running very low on water, on all fronts.
This comes as little surprise given rocketing summer temperatures and persistent dry weather throughout the year in many areas, from Spain, Portugal and Greece to South East England. However, the assessment also raised alarm bells around supplies in much wetter regions.
Now a new short film looks at how our water use and rapidly draining supples of groundwater in particular are posing a threat to the global economy. Simply put, what happens when you extract more water than can be replenished, year-on-year.
This is exactly what is happening many parts of the world, with increasing reliance on underground aquifers — some of which too thousands of years to fill — being drained to make up the shortfall in other sources.
Not only does this damage ecosystems, it poses a serious threat to infrastructure, with cities like Tehran and Ho Chi Minh suffering extreme subsidence: they’re sinking into the hollowed out Earth. Meanwhile, salinisation of former fresh water bodies — for example, at river deltas — is also a growing problem.
‘All this not seeing even near-adequate response, and it’s a time bomb,’ said a spokesperson for Showerkap, which has produced the video ‘We’ve entered the era of global water bankruptcy, and we need to dramatically reduce water consumption and shift water preservation to the top of the highest-level agendas.’
You can watch the film above.
Image: Jasper Wilde / Unsplash
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