Floods, Droughts, And A Global Water Warning
The Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE), a joint satellite mission by NASA and the German space agency DLR, tracks freshwater availability over the globe. And according to hydrologist James Famiglietti at the University of California, Irvine, it’s not revealing a pretty picture. His team has observed steadily declining groundwater reserves in many of the world’s major aquifers, particularly those in the arid and semi-arid parts of the globe. Between 1994 and 2006, annual fresh-water flow increased 18% suggesting an acceleration in the global water cycle of evaporation and rainfall.
Translation: More intense storms, flooding, and drought.