Business
Shrinking Breadbasket
The GRACE data found that over the past decade the water table has been depleting.
By
| India’s breadbasket in the northwestern states of Haryana, Punjab and Rajasthan is rapidly depleting its groundwater.
Scientists at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center identified the groundwater loss in new maps of the Earth’s gravity from the twin satellites of the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) system.
Groundwater is the principal source of irrigation in this prime agricultural region. The GRACE data found that over the past decade the water table has been depleting at a rate of a foot per year, which would ultimately render agriculture unsustainable in the region.
|
