Along the border of Mexico and the U.S., a geologically and tectonically complex area serves as a visual reference point for astronauts on the International Space Station.
Dark brown squares mark fields that would ordinarily support irrigated crops in California’s Central Valley in this vegetation image. In 2009, a lack of water meant that the crops were not growing well or the fields lay fallow.
In the Jordan rift valley, the continents of Africa and Asia are pulling apart from each other, and the land in between has been subsiding for millennia. The sinking has created the Dead Sea.
Reservoirs, lakes, and mountainsides are brimming with water and snow, though scientists caution that underground aquifers are a long way from having the same bounty.
Once the world’s fourth largest lake, the rapidly shrinking Aral Sea has fragmented into four bodies of water. The Southern Aral Sea and Tsche-Bas Gulf show the most dramatic change in 2011.