water availability

Study shows humans are responsible for changes to Earth's water availability

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A stunning new study from NASA highlights the impact humans are having on fresh water availability across the globe.

The study, published earlier this week, found that Earth's wetlands are getting wetter and dry regions are getting drier, due to human water management, climate change and natural cycles.

"What we are witnessing is major hydrologic change," said co-author Jay Famiglietti, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif., in a statement.

"We see a distinctive pattern of the wetland areas of the world getting wetter – those are the high latitudes and the tropics – and the dry areas in between getting dryer. Embedded within the dry areas we see multiple hotspots resulting from groundwater depletion."

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