Groundwater: Hide and Seek

Many of us used to be fond of playing the game ‘hide and seek’ with friends during childhood. If we focus on groundwater - this ‘naughty’ friend very often behaves in a ‘childish’ manner and likes to play hide and seek with us.

Water utilised for municipal usage and daily life has two resources, namely surface water and groundwater, while the latter acts as the world’s largest distributed store of freshwater (Taylor et al. 2012) and makes up for approximately 30% of liquid freshwater on the Earth according to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). A simple mathematical calculation would give us the answer of percentage volume of groundwater around the world = 2.5%*30.8% = 0.77%, i.e.: 1.078x10⁷m³.  

Figure 2.1: Groundwater as Part of Water Worldwide

What & Where is Groundwater?

Groundwater is water occurring underground or below ground surface, in saturated and unsaturated zones, soil and crevices of rocks, but is usually distinguished from soil water.

3 Types of Groundwater 

(1)  Meteoric water

(2) Connate water

(3)Magmatic water

How is groundwater used?

Domestic (rural & urban)

Agricultural

Industrial

Environmental

BUT …

Why can't we find groundwater easily in everyday life? Are we not observant enough or is it actually declining? Or both?

In fact, groundwater sources are in decline around the world due to overpumping and pollution. Lessons learnt from the history back to Garamantian Civilization booming from 500BCE to 400CE which then disappeared when the groundwater ran out in the western Libya desert warns us that, as water supplies are lost so are civilisations.

In the modern days, mining of groundwater from massive aquifers in the United States, China and North Africa illustrates the same problem. Similar to economics and business market, when demand excesses supply, an imbalance would occur. “In less than a century, pressures from food production and population growth are leading to declines in supplies that appeared to many as inexhaustible.” (Franklin W. Schwartz and Motomu Ibaraki, 2011)

More pathetically, there is hardly any replacement for declining groundwater resources in many countries. How to make the full of groundwater resources and would there be any clues of such impacts related to climate change and global warming? Questions remained and will be solved on the upcoming posts. So stay tuned my fellow readers! 

Last but not least, why not give a try of the fun quiz on groundwater? 
Groundwater: Myths or Facts?

1. Groundwater flows mainly in underground rivers.

2. Groundwater is not connected to rivers and lakes.

3. Contaminants from oil that is poured on the ground will be filtered by soil and gravel before reaching underground. 

4. Contaminated groundwater can eventually enter surface water and contaminate it.

5. Groundwater and surface water may be connected through wetlands.

6. The surface of a lake is at the same level as the groundwater surface (water table) next to it.

7. If a well reaches groundwater, an unlimited amount of water can be pumped.

8. Contaminated surface water can eventually enter groundwater and contaminate it.

9. Depending on the type of soil or rock, groundwater will flow at different rates.

10. Rain and snowmelt infiltrate (seep) into the ground to become groundwater.

Answers of the quiz will be revealed and published in the next next post!