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This helps explain declines in aquifers that support large amounts of U.S. agriculture and cities — particularly the breadbaskets of California’s Central Valley and the dairies and alfalfa farms of Arizona’s Gila Bend.

This suggests a dual cause of loss — less rain entering the system to recharge the aquifers, which also drove farmers to turn to groundwater to make up for what precipitation and surface water no longer provides.

The staggering variety of potential external factors that shape these impacts — whether an aquifer is surrounded by saltwater, for example — make it hard to come up with uniform, hard-and-fast rules about what constitutes an alarming rate of decrease, co-author Debra Perrone told The Hill.

As that river has declined and the population that relies on it has surged, municipalities and commercial agriculture alike have become ever more dependent on groundwater — a trend that has led to a rash of dry wells in states such as Arizona, where the Willcox-Douglas Basin is currently dropping by more than a foot per year.

But Nature researchers noted that the Colorado River has also been the silent partner in two successful attempts to bring underground water sources back from decline — though they questioned how long these projects could last.

More promising, he said, is a plan in Arkansas, where — amid broader overpumping from aquifers across the state — the community of El Dorado has drastically cut its use of groundwater thanks to a two-step solution.

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