Floodwaters have worked their way through a series of parched channels, watering holes, and lagoons to start filling the iconic Australian lake.
Published May 28, 2019Like this lake in northwestern Nevada, many of the world’s prominent salt lakes are drying up.
Published Apr 4, 2018Acquired September 15, 2010, this natural-color image shows flooding along the northern and eastern margins of Pakistan’s Manchhar Lake.
Published Sep 17, 2010By mid-June 2009, the rare filling of this lake in Australia’s Simpson Desert appeared to have reached its peak.
Published Jun 21, 2009Long and short. Deep and shallow. Salty and fresh. Blue and brown. These are Africa’s Lake Tanganyika and Lake Rukwa.
Published Jun 20, 2019In August 2010, Lake Mead reached its lowest level since 1956, the result of a persistent drought and increasing human demand.
Published Sep 23, 2010Surging 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, 2011In May 2016, the reservoir behind Hoover Dam reached its lowest level since the 1930s.
Published May 27, 2016The Great Salt Lake of northern Utah is a remnant of glacial Lake Bonneville that extended over much of present-day western Utah and into the neighboring states of Nevada and Idaho approximately 32,000 to 14,000 years ago. The north arm of the lake, displayed in this astronaut photograph from April 30, 2007, typically has twice the salinity of the rest of the lake due to impoundment of water by a railroad causeway that crosses the lake from east to west. The causeway restricts water flow, and the separation has led to a striking division in the types of algae and bacteria found in the north and south arms of the lake.
Published Jul 16, 2007The lake is mostly inhospitable to life, except for a few species adapted to its warm, salty, and alkaline water.
Published May 8, 2017Lake Titicaca, at an elevation of 12,507 feet (3,812 meters) in the Andean Altiplano, is the highest large lake in the world. More than 120 miles long and 50 miles wide, it was the center of the Incan civilization, and today straddles the boundary between Peru and Bolivia.
Published Dec 22, 2003The largest freshwater lake in Mongolia is known as the “sister” to Lake Baikal. Together they hold 20 percent of the fresh water on the planet.
Published Dec 18, 2017In October 2016, one of America’s largest lakes reached its lowest level on record.
Published Nov 3, 2016Lago de Valencia (Lake Valencia) is located in north-central Venezuela and is the largest freshwater lake in the country. The lake was formed approximately 2-3 million years ago due to faulting and subsequent damming of the Valencia River. The lake has been completely dry during several discrete periods of its geologic history. Since 1976 Lake Valencia water levels have risen due to diversion of water from neighboring watersheds—it currently acts as a reservoir for the surrounding urban centers (such as Maracay).
Published Nov 22, 2004The water within a large, key reservoir in the southwestern United States has fallen to levels not seen since the 1930s.
Published Aug 18, 2015Drought conditions have dried this closed-basin lake straddling the California-Oregon border, but it’s not the first time.
Published Aug 12, 2015Heavy 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