Humanity is rapidly depleting water and much of the world is getting drier

"Scientists are seeing "mega-drying" regions that are immense and expanding - one stretching from the western United States through Mexico to Central America, and another from Morocco to France, across the entire Middle East to northern China. There are two primary causes of the desiccation: rising temperatures unleashed by using oil and gas, and widespread overpumping of water that took millennia to accumulate underground."

""These findings send perhaps the most alarming message yet about the impact of climate change on our water resources," said Jay Famiglietti, a hydrologist and professor at Arizona State University who co-authored the study. "The rapid water cycle change that the planet has experienced over the last decade has unleashed a wave of rapid drying.""

"Since 2002, satellites have measured changes in the Earth's gravity field to track shifts in water, both frozen and liquid. What they sent back shows that nearly 6 billion people - three-fourths of humanity - live in the 101 countries that have been losing water."

Satellite gravity measurements since 2002 reveal rapid declines in terrestrial freshwater stored in glaciers, ice sheets, lakes, rivers, soil and underground aquifers. Massive "mega-drying" regions have emerged and grown, including one from the western United States through Mexico to Central America and another from Morocco and France across the Middle East to northern China. Two primary drivers are rising temperatures linked to oil and gas use and extensive overpumping of aquifers that accumulated over millennia. Nearly 6 billion people live in 101 countries losing water. Annual expansion of drying areas equals roughly twice the size of California, and high-latitude losses reflect melting ice and permafrost.

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