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> You could regulate use of the water, or tax it, etc. All kinds of things. Have some imagination. Unless by regulate you mean ban, none of that will make a fo
by MichaelCollins 4y ago
> You could regulate use of the water, or tax it, etc. All kinds of things. Have some imagination.
Unless by regulate you mean ban, none of that will make a fossil aquifer sustainable. The best you can do is push back the date the water runs out, but the water will run out. You can't call it sustainable just because it lasts longer than your lifetime. By that standard, coal mining was "sustainable".
In regions with regular rainfall where shallow wells suffice, sustainable use of groundwater is simply a matter of balancing inflow with outflow. But in regions where aquifers are deep and sealed, or were filled thousands of years ago when North America was covered in a mile of ice, you cannot use the water and balance inflows and outflows because inflows are effectively zero. The only way to balance inflows and outflows of fossil water is to ban the use of fossil water.
- red_trumpet 4y agoThat sounds totally plausible. Do you know in which regions have fossil aquifers, and which have aquifers with reasonable inflow? Also, I don't immediately see why depleting a fossil aquifer would be bad (as opposed to using coal or oil, which affects CO2 levels). Do I miss any side effects? If not, it might be reasonable to use fossil water as long as it is available to make a region liveable, but restrict its use for e.g. agriculture, to make the water last longer.
- Brian_K_White 4y ago"Unless by regulate you mean ban" I mean regulate, as in devise some rule. The exact details are open ended and infinite. You could make up any kind of rule that says what the water may or may not be used for, how much may be extracted per time period, require other things that will eventually lead to the creation of some other water source while this one is being consumed, etc. All kinds of things.