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Widespread and increased drilling of wells into fossil aquifers in the USA
Most stored groundwater is ‘fossil’ in its age, having been under the ground for more than ~12 thousand years. Mapping where wells tap fossil aquifers is relevant for water quality and quantity management. Nevertheless, the prevalence of wells that tap fossil aquifers is not known. Here we show that...
Autores principales: | , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Nature Publishing Group UK
2022
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9018791/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35440593 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-29678-7 |
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author | GebreEgziabher, Merhawi Jasechko, Scott Perrone, Debra |
author_facet | GebreEgziabher, Merhawi Jasechko, Scott Perrone, Debra |
author_sort | GebreEgziabher, Merhawi |
collection | PubMed |
description | Most stored groundwater is ‘fossil’ in its age, having been under the ground for more than ~12 thousand years. Mapping where wells tap fossil aquifers is relevant for water quality and quantity management. Nevertheless, the prevalence of wells that tap fossil aquifers is not known. Here we show that wells that are sufficiently deep to tap fossil aquifers are widespread, though they remain outnumbered by shallower wells in most areas. Moreover, the proportion of newly drilled wells that are deep enough to tap fossil aquifers has increased over recent decades. However, this widespread and increased drilling of wells into fossil aquifers is not necessarily associated with groundwater depletion, emphasizing that the presence of fossil groundwater does not necessarily indicate a non-renewable water supply. Our results highlight the importance of safeguarding fossil groundwater quality and quantity to meet present and future water demands. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-9018791 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2022 |
publisher | Nature Publishing Group UK |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-90187912022-04-28 Widespread and increased drilling of wells into fossil aquifers in the USA GebreEgziabher, Merhawi Jasechko, Scott Perrone, Debra Nat Commun Article Most stored groundwater is ‘fossil’ in its age, having been under the ground for more than ~12 thousand years. Mapping where wells tap fossil aquifers is relevant for water quality and quantity management. Nevertheless, the prevalence of wells that tap fossil aquifers is not known. Here we show that wells that are sufficiently deep to tap fossil aquifers are widespread, though they remain outnumbered by shallower wells in most areas. Moreover, the proportion of newly drilled wells that are deep enough to tap fossil aquifers has increased over recent decades. However, this widespread and increased drilling of wells into fossil aquifers is not necessarily associated with groundwater depletion, emphasizing that the presence of fossil groundwater does not necessarily indicate a non-renewable water supply. Our results highlight the importance of safeguarding fossil groundwater quality and quantity to meet present and future water demands. Nature Publishing Group UK 2022-04-19 /pmc/articles/PMC9018791/ /pubmed/35440593 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-29678-7 Text en © The Author(s) 2022 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . |
spellingShingle | Article GebreEgziabher, Merhawi Jasechko, Scott Perrone, Debra Widespread and increased drilling of wells into fossil aquifers in the USA |
title | Widespread and increased drilling of wells into fossil aquifers in the USA |
title_full | Widespread and increased drilling of wells into fossil aquifers in the USA |
title_fullStr | Widespread and increased drilling of wells into fossil aquifers in the USA |
title_full_unstemmed | Widespread and increased drilling of wells into fossil aquifers in the USA |
title_short | Widespread and increased drilling of wells into fossil aquifers in the USA |
title_sort | widespread and increased drilling of wells into fossil aquifers in the usa |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9018791/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35440593 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-29678-7 |
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