‘How Sensor-Dangling Helicopters Can Help Beat the #WaterCrisis’
#WaterNews #WaterJustice #ClimateChange #Wired #MattSimon

“After weeks of near-constant #rain and #flooding, #California is finally drying out—but hopefully not getting too dry, because the state needs all the rain it can get to pull itself out of a historic #drought. ...

“A simultaneous solution to both extremes is right beneath Californians’ feet: #aquifers. …

“California’s #CentralValley is loaded with such aquifers, capable of storing some 46 trillion gallons of water, three times as much as all the state’s reservoirs. But this part of the state has long over-exploited them. …

“That’s led to a dramatic imbalance, says hydrogeologist #GrahamFogg of UC Davis, who studies California’s aquifers. ‘Civilizations all across the world have been really expert at sucking groundwater virtually uncontrollably, but we've been terrible at putting water back in the ground,’ he says. ‘It's kind of like mismanagement of a bank account, where you get really good at withdrawing funds but you ignore deposits for decades and decades.’ ...

“But Fogg and his colleagues have a plan to balance the state’s water budget: using giant sensors dangling from helicopters and towed behind ATVs to strategically target certain areas for aquifer recharging. They just need to find the spots with the right geology.”

https://www.wired.com/story/how-sensor-dangling-helicopters-can-help-beat-the-water-crisis/