Burleigh McCoy

Yeah, this is why Debra and her team had such a painstaking time saying something about aquifers globally, because the best way to really measure an aquifer's level is by drilling a well and measuring it on the ground.

And if a government doesn't want to do that or doesn't want to share their data, that's kind of it.

So some people might monitor a well every day while others do it every month.

One aquifer may have 20 monitoring wells while another only has five.

And water levels can be different at each one.

There are actually these satellites that can tell scientists something about groundwater.

So this is Mohamed Shams Adoha.

He goes by Shams, and he's a groundwater scientist at University College London.

They can, but only by the amount that it's changed by, not the total amount that's there.

And it also can't tell you about water changes in fine detail, like monitoring a single well can.

So like for Hayes, the farmer we heard from earlier, he's consulting local experts that study his specific area.

And so those experts will tell him how much he needs to reduce his water use over time so that the aquifer can recharge enough to be a renewable resource.

And he says he's ready to make those changes.

But he admits it's going to be hard.

His farm used to sell a lot of something called Milo.

That's a grain that uses less water, but now no one is buying it and it's just sitting there.

So he still needs to grow the more water intensive wheat and corn to make a living.

Those are the products people want more.

Exactly.

And he points out that if people stop growing as much corn, for example, cattle farmers are going to feel it because they feed that to their cows and the meat packing plants are affected because cattle numbers then drop.