Groundwater Tables in India - a dire situation indeed

Did you read about this? The ground water is falling DRAMATICALLY in India. I mean, I knew that India's water resources are under some serious strain, but FIFTY FOUR CUBIC KILOMETERS LOST EVERY YEAR?????? ARE YOU KIDDING ME????

You can read Richard Kerr's article about it here ; the Original article is by VM Tiwari et. al., but I can't link to it right now. It includes some very cool satellite imaging that records very small localized changes in Earths gravity, and uses it to track water content at or below the surface.

Here is the money chart.



Green is OK; means the water tables are more or less stable. Not bad for most of central India and some of the west (which gets poured on every monsoon season). The blues indicate some trouble; unsurprisingly, Tamil Nadu in the south east is shaded blue; the state is always just that bit short on water (the North east monsoons yield less that far south; Bangladesh gets dumped on during that cycle).

But you see that GIANT swathe of dark blues, purples, and hot pinks?

Yeah, those people are FUCKED.

When you have 600 million or so people living in the plains of the Ganges and drawing on groundwater for irrigation to feed themselves, you're bound to run into problems. But 10 or more centimeters a year????

Oh Jeez. Oh Jeez. This is not going to end well.

Update: Reader Pzau points out that the states currently worst-hit by drought are in Central India, and therefore should be darker pink. Not quite. This graph shows you the rate of water table decline, which is independent of the current water table levels in any particular area. In fact, it is quite likely that areas that are already arid would have a small drop (if any) in the water table because the levels are already so low, they can't go any lower, either because the aquifiers have dried up, or because the satellite can no longer pick up changes in signals.