Groundwater and California
With record rainfall in 2016-2017 in California there’s still a question of how the rainfall will affect California’s depleted groundwater situation. One daunting concern is the issue of “subsidence,” where land subsides due to the depletion of groundwater aquifers. NASA has released a study of subsidence in California’s San Joaquin Valley.
The damage from subsidence can be permanent.
“Furthermore, the subsidence can permanently reduce the storage capacity of underground aquifers, threatening future water supplies.”
Once the tallies come in from the 2017 torrent, it will be interesting to see how much subsidence has occurred and how much aquifer storage capacity has been lost.