{"id":247186,"date":"2026-11-12T11:18:58","date_gmt":"2026-11-12T17:18:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/11\/us-almonds-walnuts-and-grapes-depend-on-draining-groundwater-that-isnt-coming-back"},"modified":"2026-11-12T11:18:58","modified_gmt":"2026-11-12T17:18:58","slug":"us-almonds-walnuts-and-grapes-depend-on-draining-groundwater-that-isnt-coming-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/11\/us-almonds-walnuts-and-grapes-depend-on-draining-groundwater-that-isnt-coming-back","title":{"rendered":"US almonds, walnuts and grapes depend on draining groundwater that isn\u2019t coming back"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Half of the groundwater used to grow America\u2019s favorite fruits, nuts, veggies, seeds and greens is drawn from aquifers faster than they can refill, according to a new study. Irrigating 75% of produce and specialty crops with groundwater between 2008 and 2020 helped spare farms from the immediate impacts of droughts, but dependence on draining aquifers could set up producers for future water supply strife.<\/p>\n<p>A new study appearing in <i>Water Resources Research<\/i> provides the first county-level data on irrigation sources for 65 different specialty crops, including everything from cantaloupes to cabbage. \u201cUp until this point, we\u2019ve kind of been flying blind,\u201d said Jackie Hanley, a civil engineering researcher at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the study\u2019s lead author.<\/p>\n<p>Knowing where irrigation water goes and where it comes from\u2014rivers, reservoirs or underground aquifers\u2014is vital for farmers and policymakers deciding how to manage finite water supplies for farms in the face of mounting water scarcity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Half of the groundwater used to grow America\u2019s favorite fruits, nuts, veggies, seeds and greens is drawn from aquifers faster than they can refill, according to a new study. Irrigating 75% of produce and specialty crops with groundwater between 2008 and 2020 helped spare farms from the immediate impacts of droughts, but dependence on draining [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":630,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38,1506,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-247186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-engineering","category-food","category-sustainability"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/630"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=247186"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247186\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=247186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=247186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}