The situation is quite serious - groundwater is important source for water use, including drinking water, and if it gets contaminated, it's very costly and difficult to clean.
The effect of climate change is not simply to reduce rain during the summer months, but also to increase the number of torrential storms. When the rain falls that hard and fast, it cannot sink into the ground and go down to the aquifers.
India is criss-crossed with the most elegant wells that tap into the shallow aquifer.
In my district, I know we have thousands of little creeks and streams, some of which only fill up when it rains. Nationwide, they're in the tens of thousands.
Water covers about 70 percent of the Earth's surface. Of this total, only about 2.5 percent is fresh water, and most of this is frozen in the ice caps of Antarctica and Greenland, in soil moisture, or in deep aquifers not readily accessible for human use.
Rain is grace; rain is the sky descending to the earth; without rain, there would be no life.
Without rain, there is no life.
There is a preliminary belief that Tuolumne River water could be captured by other reservoirs that are downstream from Hetch Hetchy, the Cherry and Don Pedro reservoirs for instance. Furthermore, any shortfalls could be supplied via greater conservation efforts, newly discovered groundwater supplies, and water purchases when necessary.
Depending on which of the many hydrogeological zones of India you tap into, the water can either be easy to reach or incredibly difficult to suck out.
I want to build a machine that can drill wells for water. With this problem of water in many places in Africa, we need to find a solution for how you can dig wells so you can be pumping water from deeper places.
You cannot put a contaminant in the ground and just think that Mother Nature whips it up and runs it off somewhere else and we never see it again.
Keep digging your well. Water is there somewhere.
The aquifer [is] the water table people need to keep secure. Nature has this incredible system of water purification under the ground. Ground water is much better to drink than surface water because it filters out the bacteria that can cause all sorts of problems.
It's a relief to hear the rain. It's the sound of billions of drops, all equal, all equally committed to falling, like a sudden outbreak of democracy. Water, when it hits the ground, instantly becomes a puddle or rivulet or flood.
You know what they want in the Central Valley? They want water.
