USA's space agency NASA has confirmed that human activity is responsible for massive redistribution of freshwater across Earth. It said redistribution is continuing as populations shift and demand for food increases. In particular, equatorial regions were drying, while tropical areas and higher latitudes were gaining water supplies. NASA warned that if this trend continued, many highly populated urban areas could struggle to find sufficient water in future. NASA's claims are result of 14-year study into shifting locations and depleting resources of freshwater. It was part of mission conducted between 2002-2016 called GRACE, which is acronym for Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment.
Researchers say that shifting freshwater patterns are result of human activity. Jay Famiglietti, co-author of research and Senior Water Scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said: " study shows that humans have really drastically altered global water landscape in very profound way." He warned that: "The human fingerprint is all over changing freshwater availability. We see it in large-scale overuse of groundwater. We see it as driver of climate change." Professor Famiglietti said at least 40 per cent of 34 hot areas examined in research were drier than two decades ago because of human activity, especially excessive groundwater pumping for farming.
