Aquifers - Threats and Solutions
Wed, Apr 30
|Rockville
Panel Discussion on Improving Groundwater Security in the United States featuring members of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology hosted by the Montgomery County Green Bank. Register here: https://lu.ma/e9qd9q70
Time & Location
Apr 30, 2025, 2:00 PM – 3:30 PM
Rockville, 21 Church St, Rockville, MD 20850, USA
About the event
Register here: https://lu.ma/e9qd9q70
The U.S. is facing a serious and unprecedented groundwater challenge. Across the U.S., groundwater withdrawal has outpaced natural recharge, while slow natural recharge has been exacerbated by climate change and precipitation variability, including floods, droughts, and early snowmelt. Groundwater is a critical resource for agriculture, domestic manufacturing, construction, mining, energy production, and other uses.
The largest use of groundwater, at 70%, is for irrigation. Moreover, groundwater supplies drinking water for half the U.S. population and nearly all the rural population. Sustaining and securing groundwater is thus central to our Nation’s health, food, water, and energy security, and economy. Adding to the challenge, much of the water in the major aquifers in the U.S. is fossil water, meaning it was last recharged over 10,000 years ago and will not be replaced naturally in centuries and millennia. In the western U.S., groundwater resources are being depleted at alarming rates.