In much of the world, differences in seasonal precipitation—and in how that water gets stored on land—are big enough to affect Earth’s gravity field.
Published Oct 22, 2010
An arid region grew even drier between 2003 and 2009 due to human consumption of water for drinking and agriculture.
Published Mar 13, 2013
Dark brown squares mark fields that would ordinarily support irrigated crops in California’s Central Valley in this vegetation image. In 2009, a lack of water meant that the crops were not growing well or the fields lay fallow.
Published Aug 16, 2009
About one third of Earth’s large groundwater basins are being rapidly depleted by human consumption even though we have little accurate data about how much water remains in them.
Published Jul 24, 2015
Natural vegetation and irrigated farmland along the Snake River Plain in Idaho use dramatically different amounts of water during the growing season.
Published Jan 26, 2010
The GRACE satellites can detect the movement and depletion of water supplies at and below Earth’s surface.
Published Sep 20, 2012
Wet landscapes are getting wetter and dry areas are getting drier due to a variety of factors, including water management, climate change, and natural cycles.
Published May 23, 2018
For more than 100 years, groups in the western United States have fought over water. During the 1880s, sheep ranchers and cattle ranchers argued over drinking water for their livestock on the high plains. In 1913, the city of Los Angeles began to draw water away from small agricultural communities in Owen Valley, leaving a dusty dry lake bed. In the late 1950s, construction of the Glen Canyon Dam catalyzed the American environmental movement. Today, farmers are fighting fishermen, environmentalists, and Native American tribes over the water in the Upper Klamath River Basin. The Landsat 7 satellite, launched by NASA and operated by the U.S. Geological Survey, documented an extreme drought in the area along the California/Oregon border in the spring of 2001.
Published Sep 8, 2001
The tiny amount of water vapor in our atmosphere has an outsized influence on the planet as a potent greenhouse gas.
Published Oct 7, 2010
These images show how terrestrial water storage in the four major sub-basins of the United States’ Mississippi River basin differed from average in January and July 2005.
Published Jan 26, 2007
