According to a new study, over half of the global lakes and reservoirs are drying up. Read to know more about the climate crisis.
Global lakes and reservoirs are under threat
A new study published in Science on Thursday revealed climate change and human activities are jeopardizing lakes. The world’s lakes hold 87 percent of the liquid surface fresh water. However, contemporary trends and sources of volume changes are currently unknown. The study titled “satellites reveals a widespread decline in global lake water storage,” examined the largest 1972 global lakes using 30 years of climate data, hydrologic models, and satellite observations. The study is aimed at finding significant storage declines of 53 percent between 1992 and 2020.
As per the study, the net loss of volume in lakes is mostly attributed to increasing evaporative demand, human water consumption, and global warming. On the other hand, in reservoirs, the main reason for storage loss was sedimentation. Additionally, the authors highlighted that roughly 25 percent of the global population resides in the basins of drying lakes. Hence, incorporating sedimentation impacts and climate change into sustainable practices and resource management is crucial.
More on the study
The study reveals that 53 percent of global reservoirs and lakes saw a decline of about 22 gigatonnes in terms of water storage annually. Between 1992 to 2020, a total of 603 cubic kilometers of water was lost. The loss equals 17 times the volume of water in Lake Mead. Lake Mead is the largest reservoir in the US. “Lakes are also in trouble globally, and it has implications far and wide. It caught our attention that 25 percent of the world’s population is living in a lake basin that is on a declining trend,” stated Balaji Rajagopalan. Rajagopalan is the co-author of the study and a professor at the University of Colorado Boulder. He added that, unlike rivers, lakes are not monitored despite their importance for water security.