STEPHEN Forster, director of groundwater and geotechnical surveys at the British Geological Survey, who has conducted studies of groundwater in 30 countries, reports that the resource is becoming increasingly polluted. He also points out that it is being abstracted at unsustainable rates in many areas, seriously depleting reserves. "An uncontrolled drilling of wells causes the overall rates of withdrawal from acquifers to greatly exceed their replenishment from rainfall and other sources, over decades or more,' informs Forster. Groundwater amounts to 97 per cent of the earth's freshwater resources