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  • Title: When the world's wells run dry.
    Author: Postel S.
    Journal: World Watch; 1999; 12(5):30-8. PubMed ID: 12322238.
    Abstract:
    Over the past 3 decades, the depletion of underground water reserves (known as aquifers) has spread from isolated pockets of the agricultural landscape to large portions of the world's irrigated land. Groundwater drafting and groundwater exploiting are now rampant in the crop-producing regions all over the world, as is exemplified by the cases of India, the western US, and parts of Pakistan. Globally, it is in agriculture that the greatest social risks lie. Irrigated land is disproportionately important to world food production. Along with groundwater depletion, there is the problem of the build-up of salts in the soil, the silting up of reservoirs and canals, the mounting competition for water between cities and farms and between countries sharing rivers, the rapid population growth in regions that are already water-stressed, and the uncertainties of climate change. Few governments are taking adequate steps to address any of these threats. It is only in recent times that groundwater issues have begun to appear in some countries' national agendas. Although workable plans will vary from place to place, clear policies should be made for sustainable groundwater use because the future of agriculture and of humanity itself will depend on how well water is managed.
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