Ongoing drought and diminished snowpack in the Rockies have combined with increasing demands downstream to cause the great reservoir to drop to historically low levels.
Published Aug 1, 2014
In May 2016, the reservoir behind Hoover Dam reached its lowest level since the 1930s.
Published May 27, 2016
The water within a large, key reservoir in the southwestern United States has fallen to levels not seen since the 1930s.
Published Aug 18, 2015
Heavy winter and spring snowfall provided much-needed meltwater, but the effects of long-term drought mean the lake is nowhere near its highs from the 1980s and 90s.
Published Oct 1, 2019
Surging with fresh water from heavy winter snow melt, Lake Powell rose significantly in the summer of 2011 after many years of low levels.
Published Aug 12, 2011
Acquired September 15, 2010, this natural-color image shows flooding along the northern and eastern margins of Pakistan’s Manchhar Lake.
Published Sep 17, 2010
Water hyacinths may look beautiful, but communities along Lake Victoria are in a constant battle with the fast-spreading plant.
Published Oct 5, 2014
Native to the tropics of South America, the water hyacinth now thrives on every continent except Europe. It was introduced in Africa around 1879, and 110 years later, established itself on the continent’s largest lake, Lake Victoria.
Published Feb 21, 2007
In August 2010, Lake Mead reached its lowest level since 1956, the result of a persistent drought and increasing human demand.
Published Sep 23, 2010
Acquired on August 11, 1984 (top), and September 1, 2009 (bottom), these true-color images show dramatic expansion of Devils Lake in North Dakota. In the 1990s, the lake began flooding, spilling into neighboring Stump Lake.
Published Feb 14, 2010
After four years of shrinking due to drought, the largest reservoir in California got a much-needed boost from El Niño-fueled winter precipitation.
Published Apr 7, 2016
The usually dry, inland lake in Australia came alive with color after flood waters arrived in the late summer of 2017.
Published Feb 27, 2017
In the 1950s, construction began on the Glen Canyon Dam on the Colorado River in northern Arizona. The dam created Lake Powell: a long, skinny, meandering reservoir straddling the Arizona-Utah border. Ingenuity of human design, however, did not protect this massive reservoir from the drought that struck much of the southwestern United States between 2000 and 2007.
Published Oct 17, 2007
For more than 100 years, groups in the western United States have fought over water. During the 1880s, sheep ranchers and cattle ranchers argued over drinking water for their livestock on the high plains. In 1913, the city of Los Angeles began to draw water away from small agricultural communities in Owen Valley, leaving a dusty dry lake bed. In the late 1950s, construction of the Glen Canyon Dam catalyzed the American environmental movement. Today, farmers are fighting fishermen, environmentalists, and Native American tribes over the water in the Upper Klamath River Basin. The Landsat 7 satellite, launched by NASA and operated by the U.S. Geological Survey, documented an extreme drought in the area along the California/Oregon border in the spring of 2001.
Published Sep 8, 2001
Acquired June 23, 2011, and May 26, 2011, these false-color images show changes in Dongting and Poyang Lakes, comparing drought to flood conditions.
Published Jun 23, 2011
