The Iowa Department of Natural Resources has released a map of predicted future water levels for Iowa. Some areas may be in trouble in 20 to 30 years, but Bob Libra with the IDNR says Southeast Iowa has a good outlook for the future. He says areas like Iowa City and Cedar Rapids might be in trouble in the future, because of their growth in population and industry, but Southeast Iowa doesn’t have many industrial facilities that use large amounts of groundwater. Libra tells us that groundwater is very desirable for many manufacturing facilities, because of its constant temperature and availability.

Even things like server farms use a lot of water for cooling. He says even when there are a lot of businesses that use water in an area, there are usually multiple aquifers available to use, and diversifying the use of aquifers will help future groundwater levels.

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