The light tan oval in this image is the floor of a lake in central Italy that has been drained by a tunnel dug through the surrounding hills. Numerous rectangular fields occupy the former lake bottom—now one of the most fertile regions of Italy. The area is still referred to as “Fucine Lake,” even though the lake has been dry for nearly 150 years.
Lake Jänisjärvi is a roughly oval-shaped lake, some 13 by 17 kilometers (8 by 11 miles) across, in northwestern Russia, near the Finnish border. The basin for this lake was formed hundreds of millions of years ago by a meteorite impact.
This astronaut photo of Israel’s Lake Tiberias (Sea of Galilee) shows an irregular patchwork of green and brown fields surrounding the lake. The Jordan River is visible flowing in at the northern end of the lake and out at the southern end.
Meltwater from glaciers to the east and west drains into Lake Morari, a large lake that lies at an altitude of 4,521 meters (14,830 feet) on the Tibetan Plateau. A stream on the west side provides the lake’s main inflow. Mud from this river gives the light blue hues to the lake water. The well-formed alluvial fan (image center), built by sediment from the main inflow river, is the reason the lake has formed at this point in the valley.
At the juncture of the border between China and Russia sits Lake Khanka, also known as Lake Xinghai. Due to their importance to plant and animal species, the lake and the surrounding wetlands are protected by the Ramsar Convention, an international treaty for the protection and sustainable use of wetlands. Migratory birds that frequent this lake include several endangered species, such as the Japanese crane.