The groundwater we consume is located beneath the earth’s surface, which means that to ensure that there is enough clean drinking water, we must harvest it from the earth. The water is stored in the soil pore spaces and these are located within rock formations and fractures below the earth’s surface. Locating these can be challenging, however it is necessary to ensure that there is enough water for everyone in our country to consume on a daily basis. The units of these deposits are called aquifers and they yield an amount of usable water.
The challenging thing about getting some of the water out of these aquifers is that the pore spaces in the rock formations are sometimes challenging to reach. In addition to the depth, they can become saturated with the water table, which again makes them more of a challenge to access.
American Water Surveyors can help with this. Using state-of-the-art equipment, we locate underground water sources and can approximate the depth and yield of the flow. This means instead of drilling dry holes (which you have to pay for whether or not the driller finds water), or drilling and having to stop because the source is too deep, you’ll know where to drill the first time, saving valuable time and money.
Everyone thinks of groundwater as a liquid, however in more recent years this groundwater can be construed as the soil that holds water in it, the moisture in the soil, permafrost as well as immobile water in the bedrock.
When we think of ground water in more liberal terms, we can also think of different ways to access it. The future holds a lot of potential for us. Groundwater may not be limited to the resources left on earth. Mars shows promising potential for areas with groundwater reserves and there is evidence that there may be potential water sources on the surface of Jupiter and Jupiter’s moons. While it may sound like science fiction to harvest water from outer space, it was just decades ago that the idea of flying in a plane or landing on the moon were equally laughable. Who knows? Perhaps the next sources of fresh water are above – not below – us.
No one is able to tell what the future is going to hold for the world in terms of where to find water if we keep polluting our sources. Perhaps this means we will be able to harvest safe and clean drinking water from other places, although the best solution, for now and the foreseeable future, is to take care of the valuable water resources we have here on earth.
