Why Are These Huge Cracks Appearing in the Desert?

In Arizona, fissures are becoming an increasingly common phenomenon due to lack of rain and groundwater depletion. Weathered's Maiya May explains.

Weathered: Earth's Extremes is now streaming on the PBS App

[TheHonestPeanut]

Meanwhile we've got developers and commercial farmers complaining that "the government" is stopping them from pumping more water 🤦‍♂️

[kaymillerfromTX]

The Colorado River used to drain into the gulf of California. It doesn’t even reach Mexico today. It’s almost like millions weren’t meant to live in a desert….

[mikebartoli]

You're such an awesome climate awareness ambassador for your generation and today's youth. I've watched all of the Terra episodes and all of the Weathered episodes... Just can't get enough of it. Keep up the excellent work Mayia!

[TragoudistrosMPH]

It sucks that destructive practices are economically viable.
Worse that many politicians prey on a people's fear of today while offing those people tomorrow.

[yoboo]

The fissures are a really bad sign but water shortage isn't just an Arizona problem. It's an everywhere problem and if it isn't a problem yet where you live, it will be someday.

[zakiducky]

It’s interesting that the featured fissure has vegetation concentrated on its edges. Was this vegetation concentrated there before the fissure formed, or after? If before, then you have a predictive tool for where new fissures might form. If after, then the plants are capitalizing on water draining into a new low point.

But to me, not seeing plants _in_ the fissure so much, this looks like moisture gathers in the subsurface fissure as it forms before it explodes to the surface. And if that is the mechanism at play, then perhaps the plants can form a somewhat accurate predictive tool for where surface fissures might form in the future.

[Ominousheat]

The Siberian permafrost is also getting these cracks. They are a tenth in size but at least 100X more in number. This is a problem because those Siberian cracks reach down to deeper permafrost allowing larger amounts of stored carbon to be reacted with the atmosphere.

[almaxie]

Just keep building more houses and golf courses.

[CamMcCulls-kxzk]

The same thing happened in many other areas that have become deserts, like the Sahara. Once the ground water is gone, it is a down hill slide. The Sahara used to have lakes which local people fished on. Climate change started happening, but a greater reliance on ground water sped up the process of desertification.

[snowmiaow]

Irrigation using fossil water needs to be a LOT more expensive.

[englishruraldoggynerd]

Millions of years to replenish the aquifers in the dry American states. Not thousands!

[JohnSmith-qefb]

They will have two options 1) Ship water to Arizona or 2) Ship people out!

[GreyCrowe]

Amazing considering Arizona sells water rights to Saudi Arabia. One desert watering another desert.

[phoebesmith]

They told us in the 70s (and I learned about this in my environmental science class in early 2000s) that we would run out of water in the aquifers by 2050. We cannot sustain our burgeoning population and the only answer is to stop selfishly and vainly making more of us.

[Hi_Im_Akward]

This is one of the reasons we don't have enough resources for the farming we do. It's not all about available space (which we shouldn't take up all of it anyways, nature still needs to exist for us to exist). It's also about the resources that are depleted due to farming. There are more sustainable ways to farm, which helps with resources, but doesn't always help with production. And resources are still needed.

Ultimately there are three factors imo
1) we need to reduce food waste, and byproduct waste
2) we need more efficient and sustainable farming practices. Efficient as in nothing goes to waste and no mono cropping.
3) we have an over-population problem. It's only going to get worse. The trends are looking good imo, a lot of people are choosing not to have kids or reducing their "replacement" population (1 kid per adult is replacement, so a couple having only 1 kid is reducing the population).

[JamesBrown-pzsz]

Where i live in alabama we noticed that the creeks around my house run 4 feet lower than when i was a kid 60 years ago

[troys]

I'm curious. We can pump oil, gasoline, and natural gas. Why not water?

[jamesdouglas]

It doesn't help that countries like saudi arabia own thousands of acres of alfalfa fields that take our water.

[WHiT_SHADW]

If oil can be pumped across the continent so can water, its just too expensive/not profitable enough to do so yet. When the aquifers dry up then people will be forced to do it. Just like oil today, wars might eventually be fought over water.

[SAOS]

That ground is **thirsty**. Thankfully there are already a bunch of holes drilled into the aquifer that could perhaps be reused to replenish it.