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  • Presentation | NS21A: Transforming Groundwater Science and Management with Remote Sensing and Geophysics I Oral
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  • NS21A-08: Water for Wafers: Groundwater Extraction at a Semiconductor Plant Leads to a Decade of Surface Deflation Observed with Multi-Track InSAR
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Author(s):
Zel Hurewitz, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California San Diego (First Author, Presenting Author)
Adrian Borsa, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California San Diego
Tonie van Dam, University of Utah


A high-tech electronics factory in Utah uses multiple Olympic-sized swimming pools worth of water each year which it gets by pumping from the underground aquifer. When so much water is extracted from the ground, the ground surface shrinks like a balloon deflating. We observe this deflation from space using a satellite which bounces radio waves off the Earth’s surface. We find a subsidence of about 20 mm/one inch per year. The pattern of ground deflation independently tells us that the water is being extracted at 500 meters/5 football fields deep under the surface, which is consistent with the publicly available well depth for the factory. We find that the surface started sinking in 2015 when the well began pumping heavily, and that although the amount of pumping decreased over the years, the aquifer is still in “water debt,” meaning that the aquifer has not been allowed to refill completely.



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