A new satellite-based study led by Prof. Shudong Wang of the Aerospace Information Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (AIRCAS) shows that groundwater reserves beneath High Mountain Asia — often called the «Asian Water Tower» — are shrinking at an alarming rate of about 24.2 billion tonnes per year. The team combined observations from multiple satellites with AI modeling to overcome data scarcity and complex terrain challenges. The largest declines occurred in densely populated, irrigation-heavy basins like the Ganges-Brahmaputra, Indus, and Amu Darya. While climate factors explain nearly half of the variation, human water use has become an increasingly significant driver of depletion, particularly after 2010
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