Events
UpcomingLecture · 21 October 2026 · 6:00 PM · ARC 150Groundwater EarthAnthony AcciavattiGroundwater Earth explores the ways in which cities and agricultural landscapes across the globe have come to rely on groundwater for drinking and irrigation. By examining the unintended consequences of over-extraction, from sinking cities to contamination, and how they are compounded by the impacts of climate change, we will see how vital this often-invisible source of freshwater is to billions of people. The talk will foreground the delicate hydrological processes that shape aquifers, with a focus on the evolution of two of the most over-extracted landscapes on the planet, South Asia and the American West, and how they came to be laboratories for groundwater extraction since the nineteenth century. By foregrounding our thirst for groundwater and increasing vulnerability to over-extraction, the talk underscores the need to shift our perception of aquifers as a common resource, like the air we breathe, in order to reimagine how deeply affected they are by individual and collective actions.
Gulf Urbanism and Landscape Futures LabDirected by Dalia MunenzonSupported by the Gulf Research Program of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
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University of Houston
University of Houston