Arizona's aware groundwater is drying up. This ASU study says it's happening across the globe

New research finds the planet has experienced an unprecedented loss of freshwater since 2002. And, the study shows more than half of that water loss is coming from groundwater.

The data, published in the journal Science Advances, also finds about three-quarters of the global population lives in countries that’ve been losing freshwater over that time.

Jay Famiglietti is a hydrologist and a Global Futures professor at Arizona State University’s School of Sustainability. He’s also the study’s principal investigator.

Famiglietti joined The Show to talk about what they found, and what stands out.

Samantha Chow/Arizona State University

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Samantha Chow

Full conversation

JAY FAMIGLIETTI: Well, honestly, I think there's three really important things. One is that the continents are drying much faster than we ever thought, and that includes the expansion of the areas on Earth that are drying. So that's one point.

A second one is that water ends up as a contribution to sea level rise. And so now the continents are contributing more to sea level rise than either of the ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica.

And the third thing is that there's real tangible impacts on freshwater availability and something like 75% of the global population lives in these 101 countries that have lost freshwater over the last 22 years.

MARK BRODIE: How surprising are these things? I mean, you are a hydrologist, you study water systems, how surprising is this?

FAMIGLIETTI: It's hard to surprise us because we look at the data so much, but sometimes we look at it in a different way than we have before. And that's what happened with this paper so much of it was actually a surprise.

The rate of drying, the expansion of the drying, the drying regions on Earth are growing at about two times the area of California each year. That was a surprise. The fact that in those drying regions, over two-thirds of the water losses are coming from groundwater. That was a surprise, and that those contributions to sea level rise are not only bigger than either of the ice sheets, but also bigger than the glaciers and ice caps on land.

BRODIE: To what do you attribute some of these things? I mean, obviously I would imagine groundwater uses because we're using it, but some of the other stuff, what are the reasons behind that? 

FAMIGLIETTI: It's very much climate change driven, it's very much human driven, so anything that's impacting climate change and leading to warmer temperatures is going to impact the water cycle.

In the case of our study, we saw this huge increase in extremes, in drought extremes and that really took off around, around 2014. So that's a big part of it, of course, increasing temperatures, and those are things that mean that people have to use more groundwater.

BRODIE: It’s a vicious cycle, it sounds like. 

FAMIGLIETTI: So one thing to keep in mind is, yes, it is a vicious cycle. It's almost … we call it a feedback, like it, you know, it's drier and you have to use more groundwater and because you use more groundwater then it gets drier.

So anyway, there's challenges ahead I think for how we allocate these increasingly sparse resources.

BRODIE: How concerning do you find this? 

FAMIGLIETTI: I find it incredibly concerning. It's funny that I said that with a chuckle. No, it's incredibly concerning, and the big concern comes from not every country, not every state, not every county wants to pay attention to this.

We're fortunate in Arizona. We have a governor who is quite water forward and she's acting on groundwater protection. So, that's great, but not all states are like that.

And certainly a lot of what's happening is in undeveloped or underdeveloped countries, and they don't really have a great appreciation for what's going on. So it's a huge concern because I don't feel that most of the world is aware of it and is preparing for it.

BRODIE: Well, so given that then, would you say the first step to maybe trying to do something about this is education, is awareness? 

FAMIGLIETTI: Always communicating our science, I think, is incredibly important. People need to understand, especially when it comes to things like groundwater. Groundwater is underground, it's invisible, it's a mystery to many people. So public awareness is huge and it also then, you know, people are quite concerned about their water.

BRODIE: What has to happen beyond that? Because obviously, educating people is helpful and necessary, but that alone is not going to increase our groundwater supply, that alone is not going to bring the sea levels down. So what has to happen beyond that? 

FAMIGLIETTI: So many things. Water just touches so many different spaces. It touches the economy, it touches the environment, you know, it touches us as people. So enhanced groundwater protection, I think, is really, really important.

But also, you know, we need industry champions. Most of our water is used by the private sector and mostly by agriculture. So working with agriculture to do things more efficiently is incredibly important. There's a range of technology. There's a range of policy incentives. There's a range of financial incentives that can all be brought to bear.

We like to say that yes, it's a global problem, but it really has regional solutions and the solution portfolio is going to change from region to region.

BRODIE: Well, it's interesting because a lot of what you just described sound very much like the debates we've been having here in Arizona over the last couple of years and yet, as you explained, you know, even though Arizonans say that they're concerned about this and are aware of this issue, finding consensus is still pretty challenging. 

FAMIGLIETTI: It's difficult to give up something that you've had free access to for, you know, for centuries and that, in many cases you've built your livelihoods around. It's really difficult. Most of our water policy, water law was put in place, you know, a couple hundred years ago or more before we really even understood what was going on with the water cycle and climate change. I mean that was not even a discussion.

So, my thinking these days is that, you know, we're not gonna change, you know, we're not gonna scratch water policy and start from the beginning. We have to have incremental change and it will evolve and I think we will be on a trajectory where the policy and other solutions, whether they're technology, whether they're financial, will match the need for sustainability.

BRODIE: Is incremental change good enough at this point, given where we are?

FAMIGLIETTI: I've become happy to accept incremental change because the full scale change is so difficult. And let's face it, I mean, if we can improve things a little bit, or a little bit at a time, that means we can go out in terms of time on the clock, say for groundwater and groundwater depletion, we gained a couple of decades. So you know that buys us more time to do even more things.

BRODIE: Better than nothing.

FAMIGLIETTI: Absolutely.

BRODIE: What are the implications if things don't change? I mean, when you talk about a loss of freshwater, this is, among many other things, of course, what we drink. 

FAMIGLIETTI: It's all of that and it also underpins our economic growth. And so, you know, no change, we just play the recording forward and play the research forward and we see the trends and many of the trends are linear and some of them are even increasing. And even conservatively just projecting our trends forward, different regions around the world are going to start to run out of water.

So I don't think humanity would do that to itself, and I think it's the job of people like myself and my colleagues and you, in the media to get the message out that, you know, we need to make some changes, it's not going to be easy, but, we have to be thinking about the future and not just the next 10 or 20 years.

BRODIE: Given the research found that the Southwest and Arizona specifically are one of those drying areas around the world. Is this a time when the state might be able to be somewhat of a leader in trying to bring the rest of the world along on this? 

FAMIGLIETTI: I think we're already being a leader and I think that because of the things that we're trying to do, we're trying to not only sustain life in the desert, but thrive in the desert. And so leadership comes in different ways. I think it's an important model for the dry land regions of the world that are getting drier like we talked about in the report.