It's Water-Wise Wednesdays with Frannie the Fish! {Seeing an Aquifer from Space}

A few weeks ago, Frannie was excited to share with you the discovery of a groundwater system on Mars. But she wondered, what would we see if we turned the telescopes around and looked at groundwater here on Earth?

A team of scientists from the Arizona State University asked themselves the same question. Using cutting edge space technology like NASA satellites and the Global Navigation Satellite System, in combination with ground measurements, they took a look at the Central Valley Aquifer System located in central California.

The most recent drought in the San Joaquin Valley area lasted from 2012 to 2015 and made national headlines with its land subsidence, abandonment of crop-land, and receding lakes.  The scientists from ASU measured groundwater loss as well as aquifer storage loss during the drought period in order to learn about what it takes to keep an aquifer healthy.

Their findings revealed a shocking loss of groundwater each year of the drought and, even more disturbing, a permanent loss of storage capacity in the San Joaquin Valley Aquifer.

Frannie already knew why groundwater loss was important and, after a bit of research, she learned more about the importance of storage capacity and why scientists are so worried about its loss.

Image courtesy of Arizona
Department of Water Resources

Storage capacity refers to the total amount of water that an aquifer could ever possibly hold in its permeable materials, like sand or gravel. When groundwater is depleted and not recharged, the weight of the soil causes it to compress and settle into itself until it fills all of the spaces where the water used to be. When there is no more empty space for the water to fill, the compacted soil, which is now impermeable, becomes the new aquifer boundary. The aquifer, once able to hold so much water, eventually loses its ability to store the same amount of water as before.

Aquifer storage capacity loss can happen slowly and not seem like a big deal over just one or two drought periods. The real danger is when aquifer loss happens over and over again during multiple drought periods. And storage loss is not just limited to the aquifers in California.

The research team has plans to continue to study the health of aquifers in the southwest United States. They want to be able to provide water managers all over the world with the scientific knowledge they’ll need to make difficult water use decisions and ensure that clean groundwater is available to us for years to come.

It's Water-Wise Wednesdays with Frannie the Fish! {Groundwater on Mars}

Groundwater is everywhere! Last month, scientists used a trio of instruments -  the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) aboard the ESA's Mars Express spacecraft, NASA's High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE), and the Context Camera aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter – to explore several craters in Mars’ northern hemisphere.

Scientists had long predicted that early Mars was covered in water. As the climate changed, the water was suspected to have seeped underground to become groundwater.

The pictures that were taken of the craters showed features suggesting that there used to pools of water that flowed and receded over time, marking the first geological evidence of a planet-wide groundwater system.

Scientists were even able to estimate water levels from the past and showed that they matched up with the predicted shorelines of an ocean that many believe used to exist on Mars around 3.5 billion years ago.  The ocean and system of underground lakes were previously only predicted through advanced computer models.

Since water is an important indicator of life, this finding could help researchers find locations on Mars that most likely would contain evidence extraterrestrial life.

Frannie is very excited to follow this story as it develops and hopes you’ll join her explore more water in space.

Protection, groundwater needs. On Earth, it is.

By: Anthony Lowndes, The Groundwater Foundation

There has been a lot of talk about the water on celestial bodies over the last year. Saturn’s moon Titan is dotted with mysterious lakes and Enceladus vents water vapor and ice from a subsurface ocean. Oh, don’t forget that salt water running down the slopes of our neighbor, Mars. While it is undoubtedly exciting to find water elsewhere in our galaxy, we are humans, on Earth. I don’t mean to squelch these discoveries and the journeys we will take because of them, I only wish to point out that our “Blue Marble” is about 71% covered in water.

Image credit: Apollo 11 Astronauts

There are 2,551,000 mi3 of fresh water on or below the surface of the Earth.[1] Space is vast and seemingly unlimited unlike our supply of fresh water. People across the country and around the world are beginning to find this out the hard way. Much like balancing the light and dark sides of The Force (can you tell I saw the new Star Wars movie?), it is difficult to balance the supply and demand for water. The good news is there are people and communities working toward a balance in this force, the force of water. Many of those communities are Groundwater Guardians. Working globally and acting locally for the betterment of water supplies is what the Groundwater Guardian program is all about. 

The community-based approach to groundwater protection works, and it is something that you, here on Earth, can get involved with. Check the Groundwater Guardian directory to find a Groundwater Guardian community near you. If there aren’t any near you, be your own force and get one started.

May the force be with you.

[1] United States Geologic Survey. “How much water is there on, in, and above the Earth?” http://water.usgs.gov/edu/earthhowmuch.html