Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – Researchers have made new discoveries that the amount of water underground is decreasing. This amount of water is estimated to have eroded significantly over the past decades.
A research report from UC Santa Barbara stated that the decline in groundwater reached 71% of the aquifer. The rate of water decline has also increased over time, from the 1980-1990s until now.
Based on research records, decline in the 1980s and 1990s occurred in 16% of the aquifer system. However, only half of the events found were expected by chance.
The findings are a sign of how bad conditions are now. The declines were found to be nearly three times as many places as previously thought.
This research was carried out by collecting data from national and subnational records as well as the work of other institutions. The researchers cleaned and selected the data for two years.
This is necessary to understand a total of 300 million water level measurements from 1.5 million wells over the past 100 years.
The researchers also translated a wealth of data into global groundwater trends. Apart from that, it also studied more than 1,200 publications to reconstruct aquifer boundaries in the research area and evaluate trends in groundwater levels in 1,693 aquifers.
One way that can be done to solve this problem is by storing water underground. However, it must be done with proper geological planning.
This method will make water storage much more profitable. Because it's cheaper, less annoying and less dangerous.
Groundwater storage also provides ecological benefits to an area. For example, in 2014, Debra Perrone, who took part in research from UC Santa Barbara's Environmental Studies Program, found that recharged aquifers can store six times more per dollar than surface reservoirs.
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