The research team observed the Tigris and Euphrates river basins - including parts of Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran, and found that 144 cubic kilometers (117 million acre feet) of fresh water was lost from 2003 to 2009 - the roughly equivalent to the volume of the Dead Sea. About 60% of the loss was attributed to the pumping of groundwater from underground reservoirs. When a drought shrinks the available surface water supply, irrigators and others turn to groundwater.
Posted on: Fri, 13 Jun 2014 03:09:57 +0000