Water takes up roughly seventy percent of the Earth’s total surface area but how much of this can we actually use? The answer is very little; only three percent of Earth’s water is drinkable. That is approximately 35 million km^3 of fresh water, two-thirds of which is stored away in polar ice caps and glaciers. That leaves us with roughly 12 million km^3 of freshwater to be used for all aspects of life. We use this water for domestic use, irrigation, livestock, industrial and thermoelectric. So where is this water found, seeing as rivers and lakes only take up 0.5 percent of freshwater? This water can be found in the ground beneath us.
So how does the water get there? Groundwater is water found underground in the cracks and spaces in soil, sand and rocks. It is mainly due to rain and snow, but also from human activities. This water soaks into the soils and percolates downward. The harmful bacteria in the water gets filtered as it passes through the the dirt and
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Locating fresh drinkable water is already an issue in today’s world. So how does overuse of groundwater really affect us? As said above, excessive pumping of groundwater will cause the water table to fall. This in turn means the water is harder to pump or in some cases impossible. As the water table lowers, the water must be pumped from a lower depth using much more energy in the process. This can be very cost prohibitive. Another issue is that surface water supplies can also be reduced because of this. Since groundwater and surface water are connected, when ground water is overused, it can cause lake and river levels to diminish. Another effect is land subsidence. Since groundwater acts almost as a support for the land, soil is then caused to collapse du e to lack of groundwater. Over-pumping of ground water supplies in coastal areas can cause sea water to move inland, this results in salt water contamination of the water