s, food becomes in demand and thus water is crucial in yielding as much possible in terms of crops. Indias water use has gone beyond the sustainable yields of the countries aquifers. With the use of electric and diesel pumps, water is being pumped out at twice the rate rainfall can replenish the aquifers. This results in a 1-5 meter drop in aquifers every year. As this happens, farmers who can afford it, drill even deeper wells. To compound this problem, it is not known how much water is left in Indias aquifers; a decrease in usage of water for irrigation would reverberate through the population. If India, already being a country with 53%of its children malnourished, were to use less water for irrigation, it would mean less to harvest and even more hunger and death. Health wise, aquifer depletion reduces the amount of water that can dilute pollutants. So as toxins or pathogens get in the water they are far more concentrated and thus create epidemics. Also the aquifers have been so depleted that salt water from the oceans is seeping into these pockets where freshwater was stored. The salt water then salinates the freshwater leaving it unsuitable for drinking or irrigation. Economically, the aquifer depletion hurts farmers who cant afford to drill any deeper. These farmers have to rely on the rain and thus crop yield is substantially smaller and virtually not worth the effort in harvesting the food. These farmers then decide to migrate to already over crowed cities leaving behind depleted land. The problem of aquifer depletion is not held just to India, it is prevalent in China, North Africa, the Mid East, and large tracts in the United States also.In nearly all the countries facing rapid population growth deal with cropland shortage. As more and more people are created the limited land is further and further divided and eventually it will come to a point where the cropland per person drops below a level where a country can feed its...
