বাংলায় পড়ুন
The time has been come to save groundwater. Otherwise, we will face a serious problem in the future said almost numbers of a scientist. Wednesday such plea came out from the scientist.
Nearly 1,100 scientists, practitioners, and experts in groundwater and related fields from 92 countries have called on the governments and non-governmental agencies to "act now" to ensure global groundwater sustainability.
In a joint statement, the group of scientists noted that groundwater represents 99 percent of the Earth's freshwater.
This makes it critical for supplying drinking water, ensuring food security, adapting to climate variability, supporting biodiversity, sustaining surface water bodies and meeting the UN's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
"Unfortunately, in many regions, groundwater is increasingly depleted or polluted, hampering socio-economic development and threatening water and food supplies and ecosystems," according to the statement.
Abhijit Mukherjee, who is a part of the global scientist group and an Associate professor at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur told that "we, in India, are abstracting the largest volume of groundwater in human history and are rapidly depleting a relatively non-renewable natural resource that is essential for our survival."
The experts emphasize on putting the spotlight on global groundwater sustainability by completing a UN World Water Development Report, planning a global groundwater summit, and recognizing the global importance of groundwater in the UN's SDGs by 2022.
The statement also calls for investment in groundwater governance and management by implementing groundwater sustainability plans for stressed aquifers by 2030.
Groundwater is the drinking water source for more than two billion people, and provides over 40 percent of the water for irrigated agriculture worldwide, the experts said.
They noted that around 1.7 billion people live above aquifers' geologic formations that provide groundwater that is stressed by overuse.
