The world, as we know it, is rapidly losing its water supply. This is perhaps the most alarming new discovery of NASA scientists. This week, two studies have found that there really is a great depletion in the water source of mankind, and scientists fear that the situation has already reached critical point.

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In what is perhaps the most interesting yet most frightening discovery of the space exploration agency on Earth, scientists found that the living planet is slowly dying as groundwater is depleting at unimaginable rates, ABC News has learned.

Using data obtained from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE), NASA scientists have found that more than half of the world's biggest aquifers are being depleted at alarming rates.

The researchers noted that the situation is affecting 21 out of the 37 largest aquifers in the world and that the depletion is primarily due to the incapacity of the aquifers to recharge faster than they are drained.

If this frightening situation continues, the world's freshwater supply will be affected long-term. Speaking of the depleting aquifers, NASA's Jet Propulsion senior scientist Jay Famiglietti said, "Most of those aquifers are the ones that support the world's major food production."

Famiglietti and his team also noted in their study that the most affected areas are California's Central Valley, the Middle East, India, Saharan Africa and northern China.

Additionally, they revealed that the main reasons behind this shocking phenomenon include: population growth, the abundance of water-intensive industries, agriculture and climate change, among others.

Robinson Meyer in his Yahoo News report said the depletion in aquifers is in many ways than one left untraced for so many years because aquifers are never noticed by the naked eye. They are typically hidden and hard to measure unlike drought that is very evident when fields run dry and when reservoirs lose a significant volume of water.

Scientists are aware that more than 2 billion people rely on groundwater, that's why they are all the more afraid of seeing what's going to happen a couple of years from now.

In hopes of starting a move to save the world's aquifers, California already issued regulatory rules to farmers who are using the Central Valley aquifer as their water source. 

Meanwhile, another study conducted by scientists at the University of California Irvine suggests that some large aquifers aren't actually as huge as previously thought.

The researchers noted in their study that thus far, only a few aquifers have been thoroughly mapped and that estimates made by previous scientists were pretty uncertain. 

For now, Famiglietti said the main issue and the major problem in the scenario is the absence of a concrete answer to the question: "How much groundwater is left?"

Famiglietti then left an advice for all of us, saying: "We need to get our heads together on how we manage groundwater because we're running out of it."

Both studies were published in the journal Water Resources Research, according to the New Zealand Herald.

TagsNASA, Water Supply, Groundwater, Water Resources, drought