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.
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.
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.