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The continents are rapidly drying out and the earth’s vast freshwater resources are under threat, according to a recently released study based on more than 20 years of NASA satellite data. Here are the report’s key findings and what they portend for humankind:
Much of the Earth is suffering a pandemic of “continental drying,” affecting the countries containing 75% of the world’s population, the new research shows.
The study, published in the journal Science Advances, examined changes to Earth’s total supply of fresh water and found that nearly 6 billion people live in the 101 countries facing a net decline in water supply, posing a “critical, emerging threat to humanity.”
Mining of underground freshwater aquifers is driving much of the loss.
According to the study, the uninhibited pumping of groundwater by farmers, cities and corporations around the world now accounts for 68% of the total loss of fresh water at the latitudes where most people live.
Much of the water taken from aquifers ends up in the oceans, contributing to the rise of sea levels.
Mined groundwater rarely seeps back into the aquifers from which it was pumped. Rather, a large portion runs off into streams, then rivers and ultimately the oceans. According to the researchers, moisture lost to evaporation and drought, plus runoff from pumped groundwater, now outpaces the melting of glaciers and the ice sheets of either Antarctica or Greenland as the largest contributor of water to the oceans.
Water From Land Has Become a Leading Driver of Sea Level Rise
Most of the water lost from drying regions is from groundwater pumping, which ultimately shifts fresh water from aquifers into the oceans.
Note: Glaciers refer to the parts of the continents covered in glaciers but excludes the ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica. Drying land and aquifers refer to the water lost by the continents in areas not covered by glaciers, including river flow and evaporation. Groundwater loss accounts for 68% of the drying in those places.
As droughts grow more extreme, farmers increasingly turn to groundwater.
Worldwide, 70% of fresh water is used for growing crops, with more of it coming from groundwater as droughts grow more extreme. Only a small amount of that water seeps back into aquifers. Research has long established that people take more water from underground when climate-driven heat and drought are at their worst.
Drying regions of the planet are merging.
The parts of the world drying most acutely are becoming interconnected, forming what the study’s authors describe as “mega” regions. One such region covers almost the whole of Europe, the Middle East, North Africa and parts of Asia.
Drying of the Earth has accelerated in recent years.
The study examines 22 years of observational data from NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment, or GRACE, satellites, which measure changes in the mass of the earth and have been applied to estimate its water content. Since 2002, the sensors have detected a rapid shift in water loss across the planet. Around 2014, the study found the pace of drying appears to have accelerated. It is now growing by an area twice the size of California each year.
The Drying of the Earth Accelerated in Recent Years
The dramatic depletion of groundwater and surface water plus the melting of glaciers between 2014-24 has connected once-separate arid places, forming “mega-drying” regions that stretch across whole continents.
South America
2003-2013
2014-2024
North America
Note: Data is for February 2003 to December 2013 and January 2014 to April 2024. The first time period contains seven more months of data than the second.
Water pumped from aquifers is not easily replaced, if it can be at all.
Major groundwater basins underlie roughly one-third of the planet, including about half of Africa, Europe and South America. Many of those aquifers took millions of years to form and might take thousands of years to refill. The researchers warn that it is now nearly impossible to reverse the loss of water “on human timescales.”
As continents dry and coastal areas flood, the risk for conflict and instability increases.
The accelerated drying, combined with the flooding of coastal cities and food-producing lowlands, heralds “potentially staggering” and cascading risks for global order, the researchers warn. Their findings all point to the likelihood of widespread famine, the migration of large numbers of people seeking a more stable environment and the carry-on impact of geopolitical disorder.
Data Source: Hrishikesh. A. Chandanpurkar, James S. Famiglietti, Kaushik Gopalan, David N. Wiese, Yoshihide Wada, Kaoru Kakinuma, John T. Reager, Fan Zhang (2025). Unprecedented Continental Drying, Shrinking Freshwater Availability, and Increasing Land Contributions to Sea Level Rise. Science Advances. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adx0298
Graphics by Lucas Waldron
