Spread the love
- New University of Arizona research shows human pumping doubled natural groundwater losses.
- The study reconstructs Tucson’s water table over 20,000 years using chemical and isotopic markers.
- Even a wetter climate could not restore the volume lost to modern pumping.
Friday, October 17, 2025 — A University of Arizona–led study reveals that modern groundwater pumping has drawn down Tucson’s aquifers more than twice as much as natural climate shifts have over thousands of years.
The research,
, used chemical and isotopic “fingerprints” from 12 wells across the Tucson Basin to reconstruct the region’s water table history from the Last Glacial Maximum—about 20,000 years ago—to the present. Lead researcher Chandler Noyes and senior author Dr. Jennifer McIntosh, the Thomas Meixner Endowed Chair of Hydrology and Atmospheric Sciences, found that while climate-driven changes caused water levels to fluctuate by about 105 feet, human pumping since the mid-20th century has produced roughly double that drawdown…