Well it's sad that our people do not understand the cycle of water. They believe penetrating the ground even past the 7 mention layers in the Quran is good solution. Dig baby dig as long as it can because 'theres a lot under there'.
But if you don't refill things, they eventually dry up or die out even the rain moves away because it too works with surface and soil evaporations.
I believe you need combination of things. Restore some of the table water before you keep drilling. Once we have enough ground water where it is, we can then soak the soil, which will in turn bring about live including plants, vegetation, birds, insects and eventually clouds (evaporation). Once you have enough rains then you're good.
My argument is simple, keep groundwater in the ground as long as possible. You may think they are just sitting there but they are very essential to rains. Our naked eyes cannot see it but once the soil gets enough water and soaks up, the rest gets evaporated and thus forms clouds.
But where does it go in the ground?
Water can be absorbed by the soil and may stay in the soil for long time until it gradually gets evaporated. If there is a lot of vegetative cover (green plants) the infiltrated water can also be absorbed by plant roots and later transpired. Infiltration occurs at the upper layers of the ground but may also continue further downwards into the water table.
Depending on how saturated the ground is, the water can continue downwards to replenish water tables and aquifers. This is called percolation. If there are water bodies nearby; the infiltrated water can also end up in the water bodies after.
The rate of infiltration depends on factors such as the amount of precipitation, the type of soils, the amount of vegetative cover over the area, pre-saturation levels, the topography of the land as well as the levels of evapotranspiration in that region.
Drying the groundwater means the rain goes with it too...
The Haud, the H2O advocate and environmentalist hence Haud (the wild).
