Aquifer
Indo-Gangetic Basin aquifer
The most heavily abstracted aquifer system in the world, supporting the agriculture of northern India, Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh, and simultaneously the site of the largest arsenic exposure problem anywhere.
Key facts
- Population dependent
- Over 750 million
- Principal use
- Irrigation
- Status
- Severe depletion in the north west; arsenic contamination in the east
Why it matters
The basin illustrates that groundwater problems are not uniform even within one system. In Punjab and Haryana the problem is depletion from irrigation pumping; in West Bengal and Bangladesh the problem is naturally occurring arsenic in shallow sediments — an outcome of the very tube-well programme that successfully reduced deaths from microbially contaminated surface water.
Relationships
- Located in: India
Related intelligence
Sources
- World Wildlife Fund / McGill University — HydroSHEDS / HydroRIVERS / HydroLAKES / HydroBASINS. Open — attribution required · CC BY 4.0
- Global Water System Project — Global Reservoir and Dam Database. Open — attribution required · CC BY 4.0
- Peer-reviewed scientific literature — Open-access hydrology, water chemistry and water use research. Public but restricted · Publisher terms — public access, reuse not clearly granted