One environmental issue
that contributes to a need for an “island civilization” is the depletion of
ground water. Ground water is the source of drinking water for about
half the total population and virtually all of the rural population, and it makes
available over 50 billion gallons per day for agricultural essentials. Ground water depletion is caused by sustained
ground water pumping. The amount of
ground water in storage is continuously decreasing due to the overuse of
pumping and the results of this are things such as the deterioration of water
quality, increased pumping costs, land subsidence, and most importantly, the
drying up of wells. The general areas
that are affected by the depletion of ground water are the Southwest and High
Plains, but many areas across the nation are beginning to experience
overstressed aquifers. The ranges of the
resulting effects depend on numerous factors including pumping and natural
discharge rates, physical properties of the aquifer, and natural and
human-induced recharge rates. One example
of a distraught area that had been affected by this is the Atlantic Coast
Plain. Areas such as ones in Nassau and
Suffolk counties, Long Island, New York, have experienced lowering of the water
table, saline ground water moving inland, and reduction of the base flow of
steams. Other locations on the Atlantic
Coast have also experienced similar effects such as surface-water flows being
reduced and the sudden occurrences of saltwater intrusion in states such as Massachusetts,
New Jersey, South Carolina, and Florida.
I think that these places are being affected the most because of their
location on the coast near large bases of water. Because they are the closet to the water,
they are the ones that are most directly hurt by the overuse of ground water
pumps. If this continues to occur, the world will continue to keep slowly running out of ground water and other main resources until the ground is no longer able to produce water to keep up with the demand.
Your environmental issue is very interesting to me. I had never thought about ground water being taken out of the ground as a harmful thing. I did not realize that so many people depend on it and get their drinking water from wells. I understand now that it is something that should be monitored because it would be terrible if we ran out of water to drink. I know that are many countries other than America that do not have great supplies of fresh water and have fights with other nations for it. We as a country are blessed to have clean drinking water and we should make sure we don’t ruin the supply we have in the ground.
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