When you over pump an aquifer the result can be the spreading of contamination or even land subsidence. Subsidence is the settling of ground and may be caused by a number of natural occurrences but more than 80 percent of the subsidence in the United States is related to the withdrawal of ground water1.
This is most often caused by human activities, mainly from the overuse of groundwater, when the soil collapses, compacts, and drops. Excessive pumping in coastal areas can cause saltwater to move inland and upward, resulting in saltwater contamination of the water supply.
The Aral Sea in the Soviet Union, formerly the world’s fourth largest lake in area, is disappearing. Between 1960 and 1987, its level dropped nearly 13 meters, and its area decreased by 40 percent. Recession has resulted from reduced inflow caused primarily by withdrawals of water for irrigation.
No | Continent | River |
---|---|---|
1 | South America | Amazon |
2 | Africa | Congo (Zaire) |
3 | Asia | Ganges/Brahmaputra/Meghna |
4 | South America | Orinoco |
Pumping too much water too fast draws down the water in the aquifer and eventually causes a well to yield less and less water and even run dry. In fact, pumping your well too much can even cause your neighbor’s well to run dry if you both are pumping from the same aquifer.
When water is pumped form a well, the water table is typically drawn down around the well into a depression shaped like an inverted cone known as a cone of depression. In turn, this lowers the water table around the region of the well.
Groundwater pumping can alter how water moves between an aquifer and a stream, lake, or wetland by either intercepting groundwater flow that discharges into the surface-water body under natural conditions, or by increasing the rate of water movement from the surface-water body into an aquifer.
Rank | River | Average discharge (m3/s) |
---|---|---|
1 | Amazon | 2,09,000 |
2 | Congo | 41,200 |
3 | Ganges – Brahmaputra – Meghna | 38,129 |
4 | Orinoco | 37,000 |
Pumping a well lowers the water level around the well to form a cone of depression in the water table. If the cone of depression extends to other nearby wells, the water level in those wells will be lowered. The cone develops in both shallow water-table and deeper confined-aquifer systems.
Pumping from a well in a water table aquifer lowers the water table near the well. This area is known as a cone of depression. The land area above a cone of depression is call the area of influence.
How does water from the deep well move upward? … It uses water heat pump. It is a spontaneous process. It flows from higher temperature to a cooler temperature.
drawdown
Initially, water level drops very rapidly in the immediate vicinity of the well. This lowering of the water table is known as drawdown, and may amount to many tens of feet (see figure 1 below).Dec 11, 2000
A well is said to have gone dry when water levels drop below a pump intake. This does not mean that a dry well will never have water in it again, as the water level may come back through time as aquifer recharge from precipitation seepage increases and/or pumping of the aquifer is lessened.
How does the water table change around a pumping water well? The water table elevation decreases. … when the amount of water flowing toward the well equals the amount of water being pumped out of the well.
What problem is caused by pumping groundwater for irrigation in the Southern High Plain? A low precipitation rate and a high evaporation rate allow little water to recharge the aquifer.
Groundwater and surface water are interconnected; groundwater becomes surface water when it discharges to surface water bodies. Most streams keep flowing during the dry summer months because groundwater discharges into them from the zone of saturation – this flow is called baseflow.
30,000 feet
Groundwater may be near the Earth’s surface or as deep as 30,000 feet, according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).Jan 8, 2015
But seven years later, little has changed for Californians relying on drinking water wells: Depletion of their groundwater continues. Pumping is largely unrestricted, and there are few, if any, protections in place. … Those managing less-depleted water supplies, like the ones underlying Glenn County, have until 2042.
Groundwater pumping–for domestic consumption, irrigation, or mining–causes bodies of water and wetlands to dry up; the ground beneath us to collapse; and fish, wildlife, and trees to die. … This increase has dried up rivers and lakes, because there is a hydrologic connection between groundwater and surface water.
[ n ] a lake east of the Caspian Sea lying between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.
Central Asia
Caspian Sea, Russian Kaspiyskoye More, Persian Darya-ye Khezer, world’s largest inland body of water. It lies to the east of the Caucasus Mountains and to the west of the vast steppe of Central Asia. The sea’s name derives from the ancient Kaspi peoples, who once lived in Transcaucasia to the west.Nov 30, 2021
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