刘文勇黄金阅读真题奥加拉拉蓄水层枯竭.docxVIP

智课网TOEFL备考资料刘文勇黄金阅读真题：奥加拉拉蓄水层的枯竭 摘要： 最新版《刘文勇黄金阅读7.0版本》高清PDF格式支持免费下载，下面是小编整理的刘文勇黄金阅读真题：奥加拉拉蓄水层的枯竭(最新pdf版本)，希望对大家备考托福有所帮助。 Depletion of the Ogallala Aquifer 奥加拉拉蓄水层的枯竭 The vast grasslands of the High Plains in the central United States were settled by farmers and ranchers in the 1880’s. This region has a semiarid climate, and for 50 years after its settlement, it supported a low-intensity agricultural economy of cattle ranching and wheat farming. In the early twentieth century, however, it was discovered that much of the High Plains was underlain by a huge aquifer (a rock layer containing large quantities of groundwater). This aquifer was named the Ogallala aquifer after the Ogallala Sioux Indians, who once inhabited the region. The Ogallala aquifer is a sandstone formation that underlies some 583,000 square kilometers of land extending from northwestern Texas to southern South Dakota. Water from rains and melting snows has been accumulating in the Ogallala for the past 30,000 years. Estimates indicate that the aquifer contains enough water to fill Lake Huron, but unfortunately, under the semiarid climatic conditions that presently exist in the region, rates of addition to the aquifer are minimal, amounting to about half a centimeter a year. The first wells were drilled into the Ogallala during the drought years of the early 1930’s. The ensuing rapid expansion of irrigation agriculture, especially from the 1950’s onward, transformed the economy of the region. More than 100,000 wells now tap the Ogallala. Modern irrigation devices, each capable of spraying 4.5 million liters of water a day, have produced a landscape dominated by geometric patterns of circular green islands of crops. Ogallala water has enabled the High Plains region to supply significant amounts of the cotton, sorghum, wheat, and corn grown in the United States. In addition, 40 percent of American grain-fed beef cattle are fattened here. This unprecedented development of a finite groundwa