As the planet’s thermometer continues to inch upwards, one sought-after resource is only going to increase in value: groundwater.

Already, about one-third of the world’s freshwater is derived from aquifers locked away beneath our feet, and they serve more than 2 billion people, though rates of use differ drastically from country to country. Just a decade ago, these reserves provided 37 percent of the total public water supply for Americans. In the European Union, groundwater supplies 70 percent of domestic use. In India, it’s even higher, with double the annual usage of either China or the U.S. Groundwater also provides nearly 40 percent of the water used globally for crop irrigation.

Engines of life they may be, but many important underground aquifers have long been mismanaged through activities like over-pumping and widespread environmental contamination. Just ask hydrologist Tom Gleeson, an associate professor at the University of Victoria, in Canada. Preserving underground aquifers is an “urgent and long-term concern” that is further complicated by climate change, Gleeson told Truthout.

Indeed, aquifers in some parts of the world, like the U.S. High Plains — a subregion of the Great Plains — could be depleted within the next 30 to 50 years. This is why Gleeson recently co-authored a groundwater “call to action” and accompanying statement — the latter of which has garnered the written support of over 1,000 scientists and experts — to help foster better understanding of the current state of the world’s groundwater aquifers, and the “urgent” need to adopt sustainable groundwater practices where the current ones are lacking. Nevertheless, beyond the scope of worried experts with direct ties to the issue, broader awareness and concern about the planet’s groundwater resources has been stubbornly limited, says Thomas Harter, a professor and cooperative extension specialist in the Department of Land, Air and Water Resources at University of California, Davis.

“The point of the initiative is to continue to stir the pot and draw attention to the issue,” Harter told Truthout, pointing to a glaring imbalance currently at play. Indeed, our current global groundwater abstraction rate is estimated to be about 3.5 times the actual area of water within underground aquifers, while roughly 1.7 billion people live in areas where groundwater resources or groundwater-reliant ecosystems — or both — are threatened.