In the southwestern United States, where years of drought are leading water managers to consider drastic water-provision measures such as desalination and cloud seeding, entrepreneurs have suggested reviving a water-saving technique that was tried and abandoned half a century ago. They propose to stretch dwindling water supplies by slowing down evaporation from reservoirs by means of a surface barrier of cheap, non-toxic, biodegradable chemicals just one molecule thick — two-millionths of a millimetre.

Based on primary data collected from 105 farming households spread across three districts and nine villages of central Punjab, this study examines groundwater depletion and consequent shifts of the farmers from centrifugal to submersible pumps. It also documents adaptation strategies of farmers in response to groundwater depletion. Owing to groundwater depletion, borewell deepening started in the 1980s and was witnessed on almost all the farms by the mid-1990s.