Dangerous levels of salt and arsenic have been detected in an aquifer comprising a quarter of all global groundwater extracted by humans.

Three-quarters of a billion people across four South Asian nations rely on one vast water basin for much of their irrigation and drinking water. Called the Indo-Gangetic Basin, it stretches east to west over 618 million acres, sitting like a cap over the Indian subcontinent, and contains about 7,200 cubic miles of groundwater, roughly 20 times the annual flow of the region’s Brahmaputra, Ganges and Indus rivers combined.

Source: 750 Million People at Risk as Scientists Discover Contamination of One of the World’s Biggest Freshwater Supplies | Alternet

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