Excessive pumping limits the benefits of a strengthening summer monsoon for groundwater recovery in India

Abstract

Sustaining groundwater under the warming climate in India remains a challenge for the food and water security of over one billion people. However, the crucial role of the strengthening of the Indian summer monsoon and future warming on dwindling groundwater storage in north India remains unexplored. Using in situ groundwater observations and model simulations, we show that during 2002–2022, about 95% of groundwater loss (∼498 km3) from India occurred from north India (∼472 km3), a global groundwater depletion hotspot. Well observations show a more robust coupling with climate through rainfall variability. Groundwater loss is driven by excessive pumping from nonrenewable groundwater storage and will continue to dominate in the near future despite projected increases in rainfall (∼4%–6%). The highest projected groundwater recovery (258.9 ± 171.6 km3) in the near period (2021–2040) is only about half of the total groundwater loss. Therefore, increased rainfall may not help recover the lost groundwater.