Yes. Hydrogeology has evolved, as well, in the last 30 to 35 years. It went from being a qualitative type of geological branch to a more quantitative physical, or chemical, hydrogeology.
We have the tools. We understand the processes better. One thing is having the tools, knowing the processes and mechanisms. The other thing is collecting the data you need to assess a given aquifer.
All that is to say that I think the consequences, as you call them, could be enormous. So far, what we have learned from the aquifers we have mapped is that most of the aquifers in Canada are in pre-development conditions, meaning that they don't have a long-term transient effect yet. But that does not apply to every aquifer. Some do. An example is the buried channel type in Estevan between Saskatchewan and Montana. That behaviour we never suspected would happen, because it takes much longer to recover after pumping than we thought. That's one thing. Another thing is that we learn from other studies elsewhere in North America, such as from the United States.
Two consequences can also happen, depending on the type of rock. If you have a certain amount of groundwater, and the aquifer is located between clays with some compressibility, what you may have is land subsidence, les tassements. The ground collapses, so you have land subsidence, as we have seen already in California, Houston, and elsewhere.
A third consequence, which is also sometimes very important, is saltwater intrusion. You go into aquifers that are around the coastlines, and if you pump the freshwater in the aquifers, you may induce salt water from the sea into the aquifer, so you contaminate it. What we have observed that is interesting in Canada is that we may have saltwater intrusion not on the coastline but within the continent. That's very interesting.