The city’s groundwater is drying up fast and experts have sounded the alert — Calcutta is increasingly becoming prone to earthquakes.

As a move in the right direction, the Geological Survey of India (GSI) and the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) have decided to jointly conduct an earthquake-management and prediction study in the city.

The memorandum of understanding for the collaboration, the first of its kind in the country, will be signed by IMD director-general S.K. Srivastava and his GSI counterpart P.C. Mandal in Calcutta on Friday.

The groundwater-level fall is one of the major reasons behind Calcutta turning into a high-risk earthquake zone, say experts. “There has been no re-charging of the city’s groundwater level for quite some time,” said IMD director S. Sengupta, explaining how the “inter-collaborative research” would be of help to the city and its neighbourhood.

Earthquake experts say several parts of the city are showing signs of a fast-depleting water reserve. The groundwater-level is falling rapidly in several residential areas in south Calcutta, like Jodhpur Park, Ballygunge, Gariahat and Tollygunge. Other regions, where a bulk of the population is shifting now — like Garia and areas west of the EM Bypass — are also causing concern.

“We plan to explore the possibility of setting up more seismological observatories to study earthquakes in the city,” said an official. At present, only one such observatory exists at Alipore. “A part of the research will focus on generating computerised models to study and predict earthquakes, and also on collating data from various sources,” an IMD official added.