Making The Mountains Rise

Groundwater withdrawal is causing basins to sink, while at the same time weight loss is making the mountains rise. That steepening will destabilize landscapes when rains return.

We’re talking about a lot of water being lost: about 63 trillion gallons this year (picture a 3.9 inch pool of water over the entire West, or the amount being lost every year from Greenland’s melting ice sheet). Without that weight compressing Earth’s crust, the researchers explain, the ground itself appears to rise up “like an uncoiled spring.”