The Wall Street Journal explains 'Why America’s Groundwater Is Disappearing'

I left a note to myself at the end of 'Weathered' on PBS Terra asks 'Has Earth Already Crossed MAJOR Tipping Points?' that I repeated in 'Weathered: Earth's Extremes' asks 'What Happens When the Land Runs Out?'

The description mentioned groundwater, but the video itself didn't include anything about the subject. Just the same, reading it reminded me that I show a Wall Street Journal video about groundwater depletion to my students and I should embed it here.

Without any further ado, I'm sharing Why America’s Groundwater Is Disappearing.

Unchecked groundwater use is draining aquifers across the U.S., threatening drinking water supplies and the nation’s status as a food superpower. For example, the Ogallala Aquifer beneath the Great Plains supports about 30% of all U.S. crop and animal production, but in 2022, parts of the water table reached their lowest levels since NASA started measuring two decades ago.

WSJ explains why this crisis is posing an “existential threat” to many communities and looks at how the critical natural resources could be saved.

That gets the point across about groundwater depletion, especially in the Ogallala Aquifer, and sets the stage for the next slide, which is about subsidence and sinkholes. I've been showing those videos to my students for a decade already. Welcome to blogging as professional development.

I don't show the next video, PBS NewsHour's Depletion of major groundwater source threatens Great Plains farming, but if anything happens to The Wall Street Journal's video or I decide not to support the paper (it is a NewsCorp property, after all), it's available as a backup.

In the heart of the country, Great Plains farmers and ranchers produce a quarter of all U.S. crops and 40 percent of its beef. But they rely on a resource that has been slowly drying up, water. Stephanie Sy reports from Kansas for our series on the impact of climate change, Tipping Point.

It's the same basic story with all new characters except for Brownie Wilson, who appears in both videos. PBS also emphasizes the effects of climate change more and makes even clearer two of Commoner's Laws: "Everything Is Connected to Everything Else" — the economy and society of western Kansas is connected to agriculture, and local agriculture is dependent on groundwater — and "There Is No Free Lunch — over-reliance and overuse of groundwater is already incurring costs. Brant Peterson switching from corn to sorghum could also serve as an example of a third law, "Nature Knows Best," although corn, originally from Mexico and cultivated by Native Americans, comes closer to a native plant than sorghum, which is originally from Africa.

The Wall Street Journal video also mentioned cracks forming in Arizona because of groundwater depletion. PBS Terra's Maiya May addresses this phenomenon in Why Are These Huge Cracks Appearing in the Desert?

In Arizona, fissures are becoming an increasingly common phenomenon due to lack of rain and groundwater depletion. Weathered's Maiya May explains.

Yikes! That might scare my students should I care to replace one of my subsidence videos with it.

Stay tuned as I track down more of my promises for future posts and share them as evergreen entries through the end of the month.