Implications pour la disponibilité de l'eau douce
À l'heure actuelle, le #pompage excessif des eaux souterraines est le principal facteur contribuant aux taux de déclin en #stockage de l'eau terrestre dans les régions en voie d'assèchement, amplifiant de manière significative les impacts de l'augmentation de la #température, de l'#aridification et des épisodes de #sécheresse extrême. La #surexploitation continue des eaux souterraines qui, dans certaines régions comme la #Californie, se produit à un rythme croissant, plutôt qu'à un rythme durable ou décroissant, compromet la sécurité régionale et mondiale de l'eau et de l'alimentation d'une manière qui n'est pas pleinement reconnue dans le monde entier.
L'épuisement des eaux souterraines est directement affecté par les décisions de gestion de l'eau et peut également être stoppé par celles-ci.
Dans de nombreux endroits où les eaux souterraines s'épuisent, elles ne se reconstitueront pas à l'échelle humaine. La disparition des eaux souterraines des #aquifères de la planète constitue une nouvelle #menace grave pour l'humanité et présente des #risques en cascade qui sont rarement pris en compte dans les #politiquesenvironnementales, la #gestion et la #gouvernance.
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Southwestern #drought likely to continue through 2100, research finds
Southwestern #US is experiencing a #megadrought resulting in the #aridification of the landscape, a decades-long drying of the region brought on by climate change and the overconsumption of the region’s #water.
Using an ensemble of historical and future #climate models forecasting climate and precipitation patterns until 2100, they found that the PDO-like negative phase continues through this century.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2025/07/southwestern-drought-likely-to-continue-through-2100-research-finds/
Southwestern drought likely to continue through 2100, research finds

Weather patterns that drive drought in the Southwest may persist for several decades.

Ars Technica
India is a global warming ‘hole,’ and scientists aren’t sure why. Despite its extreme heat waves, the country’s decadeslong warming trend amounts to half the global average. #India #climatechange #water #heat #aridification https://www.science.org/content/article/india-global-warming-hole-scientists-arent-sure
India is a global warming ‘hole,’ and scientists aren’t sure why. Despite its extreme heat waves, the country’s decadeslong warming trend amounts to half the global average. #India #climatechange #water #heat #aridification https://www.science.org/content/article/india-global-warming-hole-scientists-arent-sure
Aral Sea drainage to satiate agricultural thirst leading to land uplift. #aridification #water #agriculture https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-025-01664-w
Weak asthenosphere beneath the Eurasian interior inferred from Aral Sea desiccation | Nature Geoscience

The rheology of the lower crust and upper mantle influences Earth’s plate tectonic style of mantle convection, yet its spatial variability is poorly resolved, particularly in continental interiors. Here we use satellite radar interferometry to map the delayed uplift resulting from the desiccation of the Aral Sea, which has lost ~1,000 km3 of water since 1960. From this we constrain the rheology of the underlying upper mantle by elastic and viscoelastic modelling. We find a long-wavelength uplift of up to ~7 mm yr–1 between 2016 and 2020 that decays radially from the Aral Sea. This uplift pattern is best explained by viscoelastic relaxation of the asthenosphere below a strong lithospheric mantle. We estimate that the asthenosphere has an effective viscosity of 4–7 × 1019 Pa s below 130–190 km depth, slightly larger than the values inferred from post-seismic deformation at subduction zones, but 1–2 orders of magnitude smaller than estimates from glacial isostatic adjustment in other tectonically stable regions. Such uplift highlights the potential for human activities to influence deep-Earth dynamics and the interconnectedness of surface and mantle processes. The drying out of the Aral Sea has induced flow of the relatively weak asthenosphere beneath, demonstrating that human activity can influence mantle dynamics, according to numerical simulations of ground uplift measured by radar interferometry.

Aral Sea drainage to satiate agricultural thirst leading to land uplift. #aridification #water #agriculture https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-025-01664-w
Weak asthenosphere beneath the Eurasian interior inferred from Aral Sea desiccation | Nature Geoscience

The rheology of the lower crust and upper mantle influences Earth’s plate tectonic style of mantle convection, yet its spatial variability is poorly resolved, particularly in continental interiors. Here we use satellite radar interferometry to map the delayed uplift resulting from the desiccation of the Aral Sea, which has lost ~1,000 km3 of water since 1960. From this we constrain the rheology of the underlying upper mantle by elastic and viscoelastic modelling. We find a long-wavelength uplift of up to ~7 mm yr–1 between 2016 and 2020 that decays radially from the Aral Sea. This uplift pattern is best explained by viscoelastic relaxation of the asthenosphere below a strong lithospheric mantle. We estimate that the asthenosphere has an effective viscosity of 4–7 × 1019 Pa s below 130–190 km depth, slightly larger than the values inferred from post-seismic deformation at subduction zones, but 1–2 orders of magnitude smaller than estimates from glacial isostatic adjustment in other tectonically stable regions. Such uplift highlights the potential for human activities to influence deep-Earth dynamics and the interconnectedness of surface and mantle processes. The drying out of the Aral Sea has induced flow of the relatively weak asthenosphere beneath, demonstrating that human activity can influence mantle dynamics, according to numerical simulations of ground uplift measured by radar interferometry.

The Earth is getting drier and may have hit a tipping point for how much water is stored in soil because of climate change. #water #drought #aridification #climatechange https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2025-03-28/earths-big-dry-out-freshwater-loss-irreversible-climate-change/105100272
Earth losing fresh water and may have hit irreversible tipping point due to climate change

Soil moisture has declined more than 2,600 gigatonnes since 2000, making a greater contribution to sea level rise than Greenland's melting ice sheets.

ABC News
The Earth is getting drier and may have hit a tipping point for how much water is stored in soil because of climate change. #water #drought #aridification #climatechange https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2025-03-28/earths-big-dry-out-freshwater-loss-irreversible-climate-change/105100272
Earth losing fresh water and may have hit irreversible tipping point due to climate change

Soil moisture has declined more than 2,600 gigatonnes since 2000, making a greater contribution to sea level rise than Greenland's melting ice sheets.

ABC News