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Deep tube-well irrigation can result in hand-dug wells (pictured above) going dry. This can affect access to drinking water, as hand-dug wells and hand pumps are often the primary source for drinking water in many communities.

Earlier this week, The Guardian reported on a study that looked at rising sea levels from a new angle. The study found that efforts to meet increasing freshwater demand by harnessing “fossil” groundwater [groundwater that cannot be replenished for millennia under current climate conditions] contributes more to rising sea levels than melting glaciers. Since there it cannot be replenished, tapping groundwater results in land subsidence (downward-shifting of ground surface) and a one-way transfer of water into the oceans. Researchers involved concluded that the deep tube-well drilling for water has contributed to sea level increases by an average of a millimeter every year since 1961. Neither the climate community nor the water community had paid attention to this aspect of tube-well drilling before.

In 2009, an IATP report referred to several other problems of deep tube-well drilling-a technology adapted from the oil industry-focusing on its role in industrial agricultural production. It pointed out that the tube-well “enabled industrial agriculture to expand to areas where such massive water transfers for irrigation were not feasible. Unlike traditional wells, tube-wells give access to “fossil” water in large quantities by driving a tube into deep aquifers and using a pump to suck water up,” that is said to have resulted in an environmental catastrophe in Asia. Withdrawals exceeding natural recharge rates of aquifers are leading to the lowering of water tables and land subsidence in many other parts of the world. For example, in the United States, where 45 percent of irrigation water comes from underground, in the High Plains aquifer (which includes the Ogallala aquifer), water levels have declined more than 100 feet in some areas.