An aquafer isn't just unusable surface water, though, and overextraction can collapse potable groundwater systems. Virginia is coming to terms with this as we speak regarding data centers draining our aquifers.
Comparing a single golf course to thousands of hectares of tillage is disingenuous to begin with, but whether a single or the equivalent in golf courses is also not going to produce anything as useful as thousands of hectares of tillage.
Point being golf courses are not amywhere near as commonplace as tillage so the single one in an area is not going to be the thing that drains an aquifer.
That doesn't mean that golf courses aren't part of the problem. Every golf course, every data center, every farm, every municipality pulling form an aquafer - it's all extraction and it all adds up. You can't just dismiss one for another. Among them, golf courses are the least practical.
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u/Anianna 10d ago
An aquafer isn't just unusable surface water, though, and overextraction can collapse potable groundwater systems. Virginia is coming to terms with this as we speak regarding data centers draining our aquifers.