Satellites Reveal Depletion of a Vital Middle East Water Supply

Just in case you needed more reasons to be concerned about the stability of the Middle East, new research using data from NASA’s gravity-sensing Grace satellites shows a substantial decline in the volume of groundwater reserves in the Tigris and Euphrates river basins. Data gathered between 2003 and 2009 show the seasonal recharge of the region’s aquifers (the blue pulses in the illuminating animation above) but then the onset of a potent drought in 2007 followed by a persistent big drop in water amounts, 60 percent of which is ascribed to unsustainable rates of pumping in a study to be published on Friday in the journal Water Resources Research.