Groundwater Depletion Accelerating in Many Parts of the World, Study Finds

A man digs with a shovel in agricultural farmland irrigated by groundwater from wells in the area outside of Qamishli in northeastern Syria on December 14, 2023. (AFP)
A man digs with a shovel in agricultural farmland irrigated by groundwater from wells in the area outside of Qamishli in northeastern Syria on December 14, 2023. (AFP)
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Groundwater Depletion Accelerating in Many Parts of the World, Study Finds

A man digs with a shovel in agricultural farmland irrigated by groundwater from wells in the area outside of Qamishli in northeastern Syria on December 14, 2023. (AFP)
A man digs with a shovel in agricultural farmland irrigated by groundwater from wells in the area outside of Qamishli in northeastern Syria on December 14, 2023. (AFP)

The groundwater that supplies farms, homes, industries and cities is being depleted across the world, and in many places faster than in the past 40 years, according to a new study that calls for urgency in addressing the depletion.

The declines were most notable in dry regions with extensive cropland, said researchers whose work was published Wednesday in the journal Nature. On the plus side: they found several examples of aquifers that were helped to recover by changes in policy or water management, they said.

“Our study is a tale of bad news and good news,” said Scott Jasechko, a professor of water resources at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and the study's lead author. “The novelty of the study lies in its global scope.”

Groundwater is one of the largest freshwater sources anywhere in the world, making the depletion of aquifers a significant concern. Overpumping aquifers can make land sink and wells run dry — and threatens water resources for residential development and farms that use it to irrigate fields.

Jasechko and his colleagues analyzed groundwater data from 170,000 wells and nearly 1,700 aquifers across more than 40 countries that cover 75% of all groundwater withdrawals. For about a third of the aquifers they mapped, they were able to analyze groundwater trends from this century and compare them to levels from the 1980s and 1990s.

That yielded a more robust global picture of underground water supplies and how farms, and to a lesser extent cities and industries, are straining the resource almost everywhere. It also points to how governments aren't doing enough to regulate groundwater in much or most of the world, the researchers and other experts commented.

“That is the bottom line,” said Upmanu Lall, a professor of environmental engineering at Columbia University and director of the Columbia Water Center who was not involved in the study. “Groundwater depletion continues unabated in most areas of the world."

In about a third of the 542 aquifers where researchers were able to analyze several decades of data, they found that depletion has been more severe in the 21st century than in the last 20 years of the previous one.

In most cases, that's happening in places that have also received less rainfall over time, they found. Aquifers located in drylands with large farm industries — in places such as northern Mexico, parts of Iran and southern California — are particularly vulnerable to rapid groundwater depletion, the study found.

But there are some cases for hope, Jasechko said.

That's because in about 20% of the aquifers studied, the authors found that the rate at which groundwater levels are falling in the 21st century had slowed down compared to the 1980s and '90s.

“Our analysis suggests that long-term groundwater losses are neither universal nor irreversible,” the authors wrote. But in a follow-up interview, one of them, University College London hydrogeology professor Richard Taylor, said that pumping too much groundwater can irreversibly damage aquifers when it causes land to subside or slump, and the aquifer can no longer store water.

In Saudi Arabia, groundwater depletion has slowed this century in the Eastern Saq aquifer, researchers found, possibly due to changes the desert Kingdom implemented — such as banning the growth of some water-intensive crops — to its farming practices in recent decades to curb water use.

The Bangkok basin in Thailand is another example the study highlighted where groundwater levels rose in the early 21st century compared to previous decades. The authors cited groundwater pumping fees and licenses established by the Thai government as possible reasons for the improvement.

And outside Tucson, Arizona, they pointed to a groundwater recharge project — in which surface water from the Colorado River is banked underground — as another example where groundwater levels have risen considerably in the 21st century.

“That means there is an ability to act, but also lessons to be learned,” Taylor said.

Hydrologists, policy makers and other water experts often describe groundwater as a local or hyper-local resource, because of the huge differences in how water moves through rocks and soils in individual aquifers.

“You can’t extrapolate from one region to another, but you can clearly map the fact that we are depleting faster than we are accreting," said Felicia Marcus, a former top water official in California and a fellow at Stanford University’s Water in the West Program who was not involved in the research.

That, said Marcus, means “you’ve got to intervene.”



Suspect in Kardashian Jewel Heist Case Plans to Take Responsibility for his Role at Paris Trial

Yunice Abbas reads the book "I Sequestered Kim Kardashian" during an interview with the Associated Press, Tuesday, April 22, 2025 in Paris. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)
Yunice Abbas reads the book "I Sequestered Kim Kardashian" during an interview with the Associated Press, Tuesday, April 22, 2025 in Paris. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)
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Suspect in Kardashian Jewel Heist Case Plans to Take Responsibility for his Role at Paris Trial

Yunice Abbas reads the book "I Sequestered Kim Kardashian" during an interview with the Associated Press, Tuesday, April 22, 2025 in Paris. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)
Yunice Abbas reads the book "I Sequestered Kim Kardashian" during an interview with the Associated Press, Tuesday, April 22, 2025 in Paris. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)

One of the suspects in the armed robbery of Kim Kardashian said he plans to take responsibility for his role in the 2016 high-profile heist and will apologize in court as the trial begins Monday in Paris.
Yunice Abbas, 71, who has publicly acknowledged his participation in the heist, is among 10 suspects facing charges including armed robbery and kidnapping.
“I will apologize,” Abbas told The Associated Press. “I mean it sincerely.”
Kardashian, 44, is expected to testify in person at the trial scheduled to run through May 23. In interviews and on her family’s reality TV show, she has described being terrified as robbers pointed a gun at her to steal millions of dollars worth of jewelry in an apartment where she was staying for Paris Fashion Week. She said she thought she was going to be raped and killed.
Abbas said he acted as a lookout at the reception area on the ground floor, ensuring the escape route was clear. He said he was unarmed and did not personally threaten Kardashian, but acknowledged he shared responsibility for the crime.
He was arrested in January 2017 and he spent 21 months in prison before being released under judicial supervision. In 2021, he co-authored a French-language book titled “I Sequestered Kim Kardashian.”
In her account to investigators, Kardashian described two men forcing their way into her bedroom and pointing a gun towards her, asking for her ring. She said she was tied up with plastic cables and tape while the intruders were looking for jewels, including her engagement ring worth millions of dollars.
In a 2020 appearance on David Letterman’s Netflix show, she tearfully recalled thinking: “This is the time I’m going to get raped. I’m like, ‘What is happening? Are we gonna die? Just tell them I have children. I have babies, I have a husband, I have a family’.”
She told investigators the men brought her in the bathroom before they ran off and she managed to free herself.
The residency’s concierge, held at gunpoint and forced to lead the robbers to her apartment, also suffered psychological impact.
Investigators found Abbas' DNA on plastic ties used to tie the hands of the concierge.
Asked about the trauma Kardashian suffered, Abbas said : “It’s true, I didn’t think about it. I recognize that because I did not brutalize her myself... I was not blaming myself regarding this aspect, and yet I’m responsible for it too.”
According to Abbas, minutes after the raid started, his accomplices came down from Kardashian's apartment and gave him a bag of jewelry.
As he was fleeing the scene on a bicycle, he saw a police car, but officers were not yet aware of the robbery. Abbas said as he rode the bicycle the bag containing the jewelry became caught in the front wheel and he fell to the ground, spilling the contents of the bag. “I picked the jewels up and left,” he said.
The following morning, a passerby found a diamond-encrusted cross in the street and handed it to police. That was the only jewel from the robbery that was ever recovered.
French justice estimated stolen items to be worth $6 million in total.
Abbas said he didn’t know Kardashian’s identity at the time of the robbery.
“I was told about a famous person, a rapper’s wife. That’s all the information I had,” he said. “Until the next morning, when I heard on TV about the influencer. That’s when I understood who she was.”
He said he will detail his role during the trial, which will be conducted with a jury, a procedure in France reserved for the most serious crimes – yet he would not denounce his accomplices.
“I’m only an outsider. I’m not the one who masterminded the case. I take my share of responsibility,” he said.
Most of the suspects have denied involvement, except for Abbas and another man whose DNA was also found at the scene.
FBI involvement Thierry Niemen, the journalist who co-authored Abbas' book, said Abbas approached him because he wanted to “tell his own truth” amid what he saw as inaccurate or sensationalized accounts.
The book also revealed investigative details, including how the FBI helped French police identify Abbas’ DNA despite him wearing gloves.
“This is the case of all superlatives,” Niemen said. “The FBI overseeing an investigation on French territory — that’s already a superlative.” Kardashian was then the top influencer in the world and the case was the most popular topic on the social media in 2016, Niemen stressed.
Abbas’ earnings from the book have been frozen pending the outcome of the trial.
Kardashian's lawyer, Michael Rhodes, has said the reality TV star and entrepreneur wants the trial "to proceed in an orderly fashion in accordance with French law and with respect for all parties to the case."