The Ogallala Aquifer: Saving a Vital U.S. Water Source

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The Ogallala Aquifer: Saving a Vital U.S. Water Source 

The massive underground water source feeds the middle third of the country but is disappearing fast. Can it be conserved?
 By Jane Braxton Little
Scientific American

Vicious circle: Crops across America's heartland rely heavily on irrigation that is drawing down the Ogallala Aquifer, jeopardizing agriculture's long-term future.





Key Concepts:

If spread across the U.S. the aquifer would cover all 50 states with 1.5 feet of water

If drained, it would take more than 6,000 years to refill naturally

More than 90 percent of the water pumped is used to irrigate crops

$20 billion a year in food and fiber depend on the aquifer

On America’s high plains, crops in early summer stretch to the horizon: field after verdant field of corn, sorghum, soybeans, wheat and cotton. Framed by immense skies now blue, now scarlet-streaked, this 800-mile expanse of agriculture looks like it could go on forever.  It can’t.

The Ogallala Aquifer, the vast underground reservoir that gives life to these fields, is disappearing. In some places, the groundwater is already gone. This is the breadbasket of America—the region that supplies at least one fifth of the total annual U.S. agricultural harvest. If the aquifer goes dry, more than $20 billion worth of food and fiber will vanish from the world’s markets. And scientists say it will take natural processes 6,000 years to refill the reservoir.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-ogallala-aquifer