Groundwater Overdraft in Response to Drought

Figure groundwater-overdraft-drought

This figure appears in the Our Changing Planet: The Fiscal Year 2003 U.S. Global Change Research Program report.

A team from the University of Arizona analyzed the water budgets of several Arizona cities to determine how severe the drought impacts would be from the deepest one-year (1900), five-year (1900-1904), and ten-year (1946-1955) droughts on record. The study showed that, even under assumptions of continuing “average” climate conditions, the possibility of achieving “safe yield,” (i.e., supply and demand are in balance), remains uncertain. Credit: University of Arizona.

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