Theory 30/Water Resources Engineering
Aquifer Sustainability Is a Ratio
The claim
Aquifer sustainability is set by the ratio of recharge to abstraction rather than by abstraction volume, so a large abstraction in a high-recharge basin is safer than a small one in a low-recharge basin.
01Mechanism
Storage changes with the difference between inflow and outflow; the ratio determines the direction of change independent of the absolute numbers.
02Predictions
- P1Decline should track the ratio.
- P2Abstraction alone should mispredict.
03Refutation
Decline tracking abstraction would remove recharge.