New technology helps find water underground in California

FRESNO, Calif. (KSEE/KGPE) – California is deploying cutting-edge know-how that may ‘see’ underground water. A large electrified ring suspended from a helicopter will make a never-before-seen image of a world beneath our ft.

Wells within the Valley are operating dry. Drilling deeper is costlier and typically nonetheless fails to seek out water.

When it does, water high quality is usually worse, containing minerals like arsenic.

Common Supervisor of Yolo County Flood Management Kristin Sicke says, “Groundwater is an especially essential essential reserve throughout dry years.” The California Division of Water Assets says groundwater makes up practically 60% of the state’s complete water provide throughout drought.

Subsidence or sinking land is an infrastructure downside from canals to roads to bridges.

Groundwater naturally recharges over time however not the place subsidence happens. It collapses the spongy rock that may maintain water underground.

Our present data of groundwater is predicated on how deep wells are drilled earlier than water is discovered.

The state shares this knowledge by its SGMA Information Viewer, however the image is incomplete.

California Division of Water Assets Director Karla Nemeth says an Airborne Electromagnetic Survey is “one in all many new applied sciences the Division is implementing along with forecasting enhancements.”

Identical to medical doctors use an MRI to ‘see’ organs and bones inside your physique, California is utilizing new Airborne Electromagnetic Survey know-how – or AEM – to ‘see’ water underground.

It’s an electrified coil – a large steel ring the scale of a constructing.

A helicopter suspends this ring above the bottom. The readings create a picture of underground options together with water.

The California Division of Water Assets will use AEM to map the water underground.  It will present a never-before-seen image of the place water is, how a lot there’s, the place it’s rising and the place it’s falling.

It is going to take three years to map all of the basins by Central California.

Residents will probably be knowledgeable earlier than flights happen of their space. Info on the method in addition to all knowledge gathered will probably be shared with the general public by the AEM net web page.