As climate change threatens the world and portions of Europe experience one of the worst droughts on record, a new study finds that not just rivers, but also lakes, are dwindling rapidly.
Since the early 1990s, more than half of the world’s biggest lakes and reservoirs have shrunk, raising alarms around the world. According to a research published on Thursday, the situation might pose a significant problem for agricultural, hydropower, and human consumption needs.
According to a study published in the journal Science, the amount of water held in lakes reflects both short-term and long-term climate shifts. However, it is difficult to attribute changes in lake water storage to climate change.
Researchers reported that for nearly three decades, some of the world’s most important freshwater sources, ranging from the Caspian Sea between Europe and Asia to South America’s Lake Titicaca, lost water at a cumulative rate of around 22 gigatonnes per year, roughly 17 times the volume of Lake Mead, the United States’ largest reservoir.
“Lakes support a diverse range of ecosystems while also providing critical water for agriculture, hydropower, and direct human consumption.” Lakes are sometimes referred to as “sentinels of climate change” because they “integrate multiple basin-scale climatic processes such as precipitation, runoff, and evapotranspiration,” according to the report.
Nearly 2 billion people live in a drying lake basin, and many places have experienced water shortages in recent years.
Unsustainable human usage, changes in rainfall and runoff, sedimentation, and rising temperatures have all contributed to global lake level declines, with 53% of lakes declining between 1992 and 2020.
According to the report released on Thursday, excessive human use dried up lakes such as the Aral Sea in Central Asia and the Dead Sea in the Middle East, while rising temperatures in Afghanistan, Egypt, and Mongolia exacerbated water loss to the atmosphere.
Beyond climate change, the researchers said that direct human actions such as reservoir management, water withdrawals, and land-use change also have an impact on lake water storage.
