After five years of drought, California has been accessing groundwater to provide for their water needs. The access of groundwater use has caused the land to sink slowly over decades, but recently the more extensive pumping has caused the groundwater levels to quickly reach dangerous lows. This has resulted in the land to sink at a rapid rate, putting a large section of California’s aboveground infrastructure at risk. NASA was able to discover this notable difference in land height through radar observation from satellites and aircrafts that have made maps over time to show the sinking. These accurate measurements have shown that some parts of California, like the San Joaquin Valley, have sunk almost a two inches per month, and other areas were much lower over the span of less than a year. The areas where the sinking—or subsidence—were the most rapid are being identified to allow for these areas to focus on keeping an eye on the progress and begin to repair the effects. Without such repairs, California aqueducts, roads, bridges, wells, canals, and flood control structures would be damaged. Damage to California’s aqueducts would result in the waste of water and the destruction of the state’s system of water delivery, which would cause make access to water even more challenging.
