{"id":414843,"date":"2026-07-28T05:54:32","date_gmt":"2026-07-28T05:54:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/414843\/"},"modified":"2026-07-28T05:54:32","modified_gmt":"2026-07-28T05:54:32","slug":"california-scientists-find-early-warning-sign-of-irreversible-groundwater-damage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/414843\/","title":{"rendered":"California Scientists Find Early Warning Sign of Irreversible Groundwater Damage"},"content":{"rendered":"

The U.S. Geological Survey\u2019s California Water Center estimates 15% of the Central Valley\u2019s groundwater storage capacity has been permanently lost because of subsidence. <\/p>\n

Jul 27, 2026<\/p>\n

Updated 3:01 pm PT<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

A water irrigation canal in Shafter, California. \u00a0(Citizen of the Planet\/UCG\/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Some farming towns in California\u2019s Central Valley<\/a> have sunk by more than 11 feet in recent years because of groundwater pumping, the extraction of water from underground aquifers using wells and electric pumps for drinking, farming and industry.\u00a0<\/p>\n

While some land subsidence is temporary, excessive pumping can cause aquifers to permanently collapse, reducing storage capacity and damaging homes, roads, bridges and canals.<\/p>\n

New research from UCLA and Caltech has outlined a way to detect when temporary land subsidence becomes permanent and irreversible.<\/p>\n

The research, published this week<\/a> in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, uses satellite imagery to identify the \u201cabrupt transition to irreversible damage.\u201d Researchers hope this will give decision makers new tools to keep an eye on water resources.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you start seeing that the ground is subsiding this fast, like we\u2019re seeing, we\u2019re hoping this is really an early warning signal that, okay, something is wrong, we need to stop pumping groundwater right now,\u201d said Stacy Larochelle,<\/a> an assistant professor at UCLA.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The U.S. Geological Survey\u2019s California Water Center estimates 15% of the Central Valley\u2019s groundwater storage capacity has been…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":414844,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8],"class_list":["post-414843","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=414843"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414843\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/414844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=414843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=414843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=414843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}