Lake Eyre did something in 2011 that it doesn’t do very often: it took on new water.
Published Dec 19, 2011
Dissolved organic matter from forests and wetlands stained the water dark brown near Rupert Bay. A similar process darkens tea.
Published Oct 1, 2016
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
Wild patterns on the water's surface are evidence of the fluid dynamics that occur when fresh river water meets sea water.
Published Aug 20, 2018
In October 2016, one of America’s largest lakes reached its lowest level on record.
Published Nov 3, 2016
High tides in the funnel-shaped bay are anything but a bore when they collide with river water flowing in the opposite direction.
Published Oct 28, 2019
Acquired on April 10, 2010, and and March 7, 2009, these natural-color images show changes in a central Australian saltpan, Lake Frome. In 2010, water has seeped into the salt lake, leaving standing water in some areas and muddying much of the ground surface.
Published Apr 14, 2010
In May 2016, the reservoir behind Hoover Dam reached its lowest level since the 1930s.
Published May 27, 2016
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, 2019
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 August 2010, Lake Mead reached its lowest level since 1956, the result of a persistent drought and increasing human demand.
Published Sep 23, 2010
This shallow, saline lake in Iran is one of the largest in the Middle East. But drought and water withdrawals for farming are shrinking it.
Published Aug 4, 2014
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 spring 2014, visitors to Lake Powell will find beaches and rock formations that are usually underwater. After several years of drought, the reservoir has dropped below 50 percent capacity.
Published May 22, 2014
Long and short. Deep and shallow. Salty and fresh. Blue and brown. These are Africa’s Lake Tanganyika and Lake Rukwa.
Published Jun 20, 2019
When leaves, roots, or bark disintegrates in water, that changes the color of a river or lake, much like a adding a teabag to hot water.
Published Oct 25, 2016
The 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, 2017
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
The 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, 2007
Snow and ice cover the landscape around this basin of Lake Michigan.
Published Mar 24, 2014
Despite the bay’s calm waters, constant reminders of the city break through.
Published Oct 5, 2017
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