Where does the water go?

[Pinklimey]

Just reading on Cambridge Evening News about a new housing development where the water table was removed to start building. Where is this water taken to and is it ever replaced? Are developers going to say oops in the future after they have accidentally turned parts of the country into desert?

www.cambridge-news.co.uk/news/local-news/farmer-who-refused-sell-developers-24389290 For the article

I have no idea!
I thought the water table was more of a concept about how much water the land holds!

It might be my clumsy English. There's underground water that for whatever reason the developer saw fit to remove in order to build a new town.

If nature is being killed by the removal of water to build new properties, I don't understand how the land can take more people.

You can lower the water table by pumping the water elsewhere, but it will return to it's natural level once you stop pumping. My guess is the entire development will be very damp in about 10 years time, once the developers have sold everything and moved on, and no one takes on the work/ expense of continuing to pump the water.

Oh that makes sense, thanks @Sprogonthetyne

I hope there's a way of seeing that you're going to be buying on top of water before you do!

The article seems to suggest they have re-engineered the water table permanently. I'm not an expert but it says they dug a gravel aquifer which I think means rather than the water flowing over the land and reaching a natural level they have built a channel for the water to go straight down underneath where it would normally sit. Think of it as diverting a stream but instead of moving it horizontally across the landscape they have moved it vertically downwards.

So there is no need to keep pumping water out under the new development. But they will need to survey the aquifer from time to time to make sure it's doing its job.

Either way it sounds heartbreaking for the farmer to have the water drained away from his well and all the trees.