The world’s largest #lakes are shrinking dramatically and scientists say they have figured out why

These significant bodies of water include the Colorado River’s #LakeMead, which has receded sharply amid a #megadrought and decades of #overuse.

By Laura Paddison, CNN

Published May 18, 2023 4:29 PM EDT

The shrinking of many lakes has been well documented, but the extent of change – and the reasons behind it – have been less thoroughly examined, said Fangfang Yao, the study’s lead author and a visiting scholar at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder.

The researchers used satellite measurements of nearly 2,000 of the world’s largest lakes and reservoirs, which together represent 95% of Earth’s total lake water storage.

Examining more than 250,000 satellite images spanning from 1992 to 2020, along with climate models, they were able to reconstruct the history of the lakes going back decades.

The results were “staggering,” the report authors said.

They found that 53% of the lakes and reservoirs had lost significant amounts of water, with a net decline of around 22 billion metric tons a year – an amount the report authors compared to the volume of 17 Lake Meads.

More than half of the net loss of water volume in natural lakes can be attributed to human activities and climate change, the report found.
The report found losses in lake water storage everywhere, including in the humid #tropics and the cold Arctic. This suggests “drying trends worldwide are more extensive than previously thought,” Yao said.

Different lakes were affected by different drivers.

#Unsustainable water consumption is the predominant reason behind the shriveling of the #AralSea in Uzbekistan and California’s #SaltonSea, while changes in rainfall and runoff have driven the decline of the #GreatSaltLake, the report found.

In the #Arctic, lakes have been shrinking due to a combination of changes in temperature, precipitation, evaporation and runoff.

“Many of the human and climate change footprints on lake water losses were previously unknown,” Yao said, “such as the desiccations of #LakeGoodEZareh in Afghanistan and #LakeMarChiquita in Argentina."

#WaterIsLife #WaterWars #Consumption #ClimateCrisis

Read more:
https://www.accuweather.com/en/climate/worlds-largest-lakes-see-sharp-declines/1528645