A large US state is about to disappear just because ...

A vast and extremely famous state of the world - California - may disappear in the future only because of human actions.

California is a famous US state with great beauty of nature and people, along with more than 1,000km of coastline.

But, according to the latest study by Cornell University (USA), California is on the verge of being completely engulfed . Believe it or not, within a year, the center of California has sunk to 0.5m.

Why is that?

You know, this is a serious consequence of prolonged drought and depletion of groundwater .

Specifically, the researchers observed and analyzed satellite images of central California groundwater. During the period 1962 - 2011, they found that each year the groundwater in the Tulare Basin (California) decreased by about 2 kilometers of water. Most serious, since 2012-2016, this number has increased to 42 km ³ . This is an alarming number!

Flooding takes place in many places in California.

In particular, throughout 2017, increasingly scarce groundwater levels have caused subsidence to occur in many places. Many roads were cracked everywhere, creating potholes, deep holes.

In addition, once the surface of the land subsides too much, it will seriously affect the drainage system to make the city more vulnerable to flooding.

The question continues: Why is the groundwater source here so scarce?

For more than a century, about 80% of groundwater has been used for agricultural purposes. Wanting to increase crop productivity, farmers have exploited underground water sources too much. They dug wells with too dense density, negatively affecting groundwater resources and also weakening the ground.

In addition, if normal after heavy rain and snow, the underground water source will be more abundant. But ironically, since 2011, prolonged droughts have prevented this from happening, and have caused groundwater depletion.

Subsidence appears again and more serious in California.

Dr. Kyle Murray, the study author, expressed his concern: "Californians hope big storms in early 2017 will end the drought. However, in early summer this year, the situation subsidence appeared again and more serious. "

More seriously, co-author Dr Rowena Lohman said: "We found that one of the main water pipes here was completely broken and unable to supply water. This is the attack. giant nightmare for agriculture "

Prolonged droughts make the way of groundwater running out.

And if these droughts continue, things can get worse .

Therefore, Dr. Lohman warned authorities and Californians to use rational and economical groundwater resources to prevent devastating disasters in the future.