The groundwater reserves across the world are drying up owing to the excessive use of solar-powered pumps by farmers, Yale Environment 360 reported.

Solar pumps have witnessed a rapid increase in rural communities in many water-starved regions in Asia, Africa, and other regions.

Considered a suitable substitute for electric or fossil fuel-powered pumps, the solar pumps can tap underground water all day long without any charge.

As a result, the underground rocks are now dry down to 400 feet below ground with little to no rain to replace the water being raised to the surface by the farmers for irrigation.

According to a World Bank study last year, boreholes sunk into water-holding rocks now provide 43% of the world’s irrigation water while irrigation is responsible for around 70% of the global underground water withdrawals.

The World Bank review noted that the overexploitation of groundwater is “a classic tragedy of the commons—with exponential impacts disproportionately affecting the most vulnerable.”

In India alone, more than 3 million farmers will be extracting water from beneath their fields using solar-powered pumps by 2026.

The Indian government has provided subsidised solar pumps to around 100,000 farmers in Rajasthan state over the past decade.

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These pumps now provide water over a million acres and have enabled agricultural water use to increase by more than a quarter.

While the increased amount of groundwater available to farmers is considered good news, the solar-powered revolution is emptying already-stressed underground water reserves.

The success of solar pumps is “threatening the viability of many aquifers already at risk of running dry,” Soumya Balasubramanya, an economist at the World Bank with extensive experience of water policy, warned in January.

The solar-powered revolution is rapidly turning into an environmental time bomb as rivers are being emptied, and new investment has dried up.