Underground "Fossil Water" Running OutIn the world's driest places, "fossil water" is becoming as valuable as fossil fuel

By Brian Handwerk for National Geographic NewsPublished May 6, 2010

The North African country receives little rain, and its population is concentrated on the coasts, where groundwater reserves are becoming increasingly brackish (slightly salty) and nearing depletion.

Since former Libyan President Muammar Qaddafi launched his Great Man-Made River Project in the 1980s, an epic system of pipes, reservoirs, and engineering infrastructure is being built. It will be able to pump from some 1,300 paleowater wells and move 230 million cubic feet of water every day.

But while fossil water can fill critical needs, experts warn, it's ultimately just a temporary measure until conservation measures and technologies become regular practices.

Radioactive Worries

Engineers in Jordan hope that the country's large fossil-water resources can help stem its chronic water shortage.

They envision a system that can move 3.5 billion cubic feet of water each year over a mostly uphill, 200-mile-long stretch from the remote southern desert to the capital city of Amman. The project aims to tap Jordan's last primary water reserve,the Disi aquifer, on the border with Saudi Arabia.

Pipes are put in place for a Libyan water transfer project. Photograph by Thomas Hartwell, Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images

“Fossil water” is ancient freshwater that was created eons ago and trapped underground in huge reservoirs, or aquifers. And like oil, no one knows how much there is—but experts do know that when it's gone, it's gone.

In the meantime, though, paleowater is the only option in many water-strapped nations. For instance, Libya is habitable because of aquifers—some of them 75,000 years old—discovered under the Sahara's sands during 1950s oil explorations.

The Disi aquifer spans the border of Jordan and Saudi Arabia http://www.peregrinational.com/?p=249

But the project has encountered an unexpected stumbling block. The Disi's fossil water was recently found to contain 20 times the radiation levels considered safe for drinking. The water is contaminated naturally by sandstone, which has slowly released radioactive contaminants over the eons.

Fossil water is used all over the Mid-East and North Africahttp://www.eia.gov/countries/mena/

Troubled Waters

Bringing fossil water to the surface may cause other water quality issues. When aquifers are depleted, they can be subject to an influx of surrounding contaminants such as saltwater—a particular problem near coastal areas.

Also, like oil fields, depleting fossil water aquifers too quickly can reduce underground pressures and make large quantities of water essentially irretrievable.

Saudi Arabia has also attempted tapping fossil waters. In 2008 a long-running program to sustain a wheat industry with fossil water was scrapped; it simply sucked up too much rare water. The government intends to rely entirely on wheat imports by 2016, experts say.

Testing the Waters With New Technologies

Technological advances are also helping scientists get a handle on just how much water can be found in a given locale.

For instance, the European Space Agency's AQUIFER project uses satellite imagery to estimate water resources from space and help aid transborder management, according to geophysicist Stefan Saradeth.

Such water-availability information is intended to help nations work together and share a critical resource. “Every country can look beyond its own borders and see what’s going on," he said.

Other technologies can measure fossil water reserves more directly. In northern India, scientists used NASA's Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) to measure aquifer use.

When underground reservoir levels change, they slightly alter Earth's gravitational field—

Geochemist and water-quality expert Avner Vengosh of Duke University, one of the scientists who first discovered the problem, said the Disi's situation is not unusual.

Radiation contamination has been found in Israel, Egypt, Saudia Arabia, and Libya, Vengosh said. Fortunately, radiation contamination can be fixed through a simple water-softening process, though it does cost money and creates radioactive waste that must be disposed of properly, he noted.

just enough to be detected by GRACE satellites. That data is used to map water use. In northern India, they produced a disturbing picture.  The NASA study found that humans are using more water than rains can replenish, and groundwater levels declined by an average of one foot per year between 2002 and 2008.

Time—and Water—Running Out

In other nations the crisis is far more immediate—especially in Yemen, said Oxford's Mike Edmunds. The Middle Eastern country depends on fossil water—but can't expect to do so for much longer, according to Edmunds. "The Sana'a Basin is down to its last few years of extractable water," he said.

No one knows what will happen when it runs out—but Yemen’s fossil water will soon be a thing of the past.

Vocabulary

Context clues: use context clues to determine the meaning of the following words.

1. Which pair of words is a clue to the meaning of the word eons in the following sentence? “Fossil water” is ancient freshwater that was created eons ago and trapped underground in huge reservoirs, or aquifers.

a. reservoirs, aquifers b. water, freshwater c. fossil, ancientd. created, trapped

2. What type of context clue is given to help you learn the meaning of the word brackish?

a. synonymb. definition/punctuation c. inference d. antonym

Structural Analysis: use your knowledge of Greek and Latin prefixes, roots and suffixes to figure out the meaning of words.

3. The Latin word habitare means "fit to live in.” The suffix –able means “capable of.” What does the word habitable mean in the sentence “For instance, Libya is habitable because of aquifers.” ___________________________________________________________

4. The Latin root flux is from the Latin verb fluere which means “to flow.” What does influx mean?

____________________________________________________________

5. The prefix con- means together. What does confluence mean? (Sumer is at the confluence of the Tigris and the Euphrates Rivers.)

______________________________________________________________

Infra = "below, underneath, beneath; later than, smaller, inferior to," in the sense of “contributing to. Infrastructure means the installations or parts that form the basis for an operation or system. For example, roads, rail lines and airports are part of our country’s transportation infrastructure. Cell towers, broadband cables and telephone lines are part of our communications infrastructure.

Tea Party quotes

“Fossil water” is ancient freshwater that was created eons ago and trapped underground in huge reservoirs, or aquifers.

In the world's driest places, "fossil water" is becoming as valuable as fossil fuel.

[P]aleowater is the only option in many water-strapped nations.

Libya is habitable because of aquifers.

Also, like oil fields, depleting fossil water aquifers too quickly can reduce underground pressures and make large quantities of water essentially irretrievable.

The Disi's fossil water was recently found to contain 20 times the radiation levels considered safe for drinking.

The project aims to tap Jordan's last primary water reserve, the Disi aquifer, on the border with Saudi Arabia.

The Disi aquifer spans the border of Jordan and Saudi Arabia.

When aquifers are depleted, they can be subject to an influx of surrounding contaminants such as saltwater—a particular problem near coastal areas.

[T]he European Space Agency's AQUIFER project uses satellite imagery to estimate water resources from space and help aid transborder management, according to geophysicist Stefan Saradeth.

Such water-availability information is intended to help nations work together and share a critical resource.

In 2008 a long-running program to sustain a wheat industry with fossil water was scrapped; it simply sucked up too much rare water.

Saudi Arabia has also attempted tapping fossil waters.

While fossil water can fill critical needs, experts warn, it's ultimately just a temporary measure until conservation measures and technologies become regular practices.

The North African country receives little rain, and its population is concentrated on the coasts, where groundwater reserves are becoming increasingly brackish (slightly salty) and nearing depletion.

Engineers in Jordan hope that the country's large fossil-water resources can help stem its chronic water shortage.

“Fossil water” is ancient freshwater that was created eons ago and trapped underground in huge reservoirs, or aquifers.

In the world's driest places, "fossil water" is becoming as valuable as fossil fuel.

The project aims to tap Jordan's last primary water reserve, the Disi aquifer, on the border with Saudi Arabia.

Engineers in Jordan hope that the country's large fossil-water resources can help stem its chronic water shortage.

[T]he European Space Agency's AQUIFER project uses satellite imagery to estimate water resources from space and help aid transborder management, according to geophysicist Stefan Saradeth.

The Disi aquifer spans the border of Jordan and Saudi Arabia.

Libya is habitable because of aquifers.

Also, like oil fields, depleting fossil water aquifers too quickly can reduce underground pressures and make large quantities of water essentially irretrievable.

No one knows what will happen when it runs out—but Yemen’s fossil water will soon be a thing of the past.