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
In May 2016, the reservoir behind Hoover Dam reached its lowest level since the 1930s.
Published May 27, 2016
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
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
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
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
Located on the border of Russia and China, Lake Khanka plays an important role in supporting biodiversity in the region.
Published Jun 10, 2019
When the water gets saltier in Iran’s largest lake, the microscopic inhabitants can turn the water dark red.
Published Jul 26, 2016
Big rain events in Queensland can alter the landscape for months as water—and then a carpet of vegetation—moves toward Lake Eyre.
Published Apr 3, 2019
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
Declining water levels in this saline lake in northwestern China have exposed playa prone to producing dust storms.
Published Nov 25, 2014
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
Sitting atop the Andes plateau on the border between Peru and Bolivia, the lake is the highest major body of navigable water in the world and the largest lake in South America.
Published Nov 23, 2015
Satellite data suggests this Russian salt lake is getting brighter due to the installation of check dams.
Published Dec 3, 2014
The lake is mostly inhospitable to life, except for a few species adapted to its warm, salty, and alkaline water.
Published May 8, 2017
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
In October 2016, one of America’s largest lakes reached its lowest level on record.
Published Nov 3, 2016
Salt and algae lend color to the bed of this desert lake in Iran.
Published Feb 20, 2017
Drought conditions have dried this closed-basin lake straddling the California-Oregon border, but it’s not the first time.
Published Aug 12, 2015
Shaped like an evergreen conifer, Lake Dukan is the largest lake in Iraqi Kurdistan.
Published Dec 25, 2018
Drought and water-diversion projects have caused Bolivia’s second-largest lake to dry up.
Published Jan 23, 2016
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
Straddling Austria and Hungary, the lake is also known as the “Sea of the Viennese.”
Published Apr 10, 2017
Persistent drought and intensive water use has proven too much for this lake in Chile.
Published Apr 18, 2019
After decades of low water levels, two of Iraq’s popular lakes appear to be filling again.
Published Sep 26, 2020
The green-brown waters of Lake Barkol sit within the pale shorelines of an ancient lake, hinting that the climate was once much wetter in this part of western China.
Published Jun 21, 2014
The so-called “black lake” in Tajikistan’s Pamir Mountains is often topped with a layer of white.
Published Dec 16, 2019
Inle Lake is home to floating tomato farms and booming tourism.
Published Apr 1, 2015
The fingerprints of human civilization are all over the lake in eastern China.
Published Jan 10, 2015
The once-great lake has lost most of its water and now spans less than a tenth of the area it covered in the 1960s.
Published Nov 25, 2017
Like this lake in northwestern Nevada, many of the world’s prominent salt lakes are drying up.
Published Apr 4, 2018
By mid-June 2009, the rare filling of this lake in Australia’s Simpson Desert appeared to have reached its peak.
Published Jun 21, 2009
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
Rich in carbonate species and salts, the basin is the largest alkaline lake in the world.
Published Aug 12, 2018
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
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
Intense spring rains bring relief to a desiccated lake.
Published Apr 22, 2019
Pyramid Lake, in western Nevada, is a remnant of the ancient and much larger Lake Lahontan that formed during the last Ice Age.
Published Oct 18, 2010
Lake Hachirō in northern Honshu was once Japan’s second largest lake.
Published Dec 1, 2019
Fine particles of pulverized rock absorb and scatter sunlight in ways that can give water a striking blue-green color.
Published May 20, 2019
One of the largest reservoirs in the United States stands alongside one of the largest national monuments.
Published Jan 23, 2017
This lake in northwest Russia is small compared to Lake Baikal, yet it still manages to make a stately appearance in satellite imagery.
Published Apr 4, 2020
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
Flood water from northern Queensland drained toward a large basin in Australia’s interior—painting the desert landscape green.
Published May 4, 2018
Located within the Rocky Mountain Trench, it is one of the largest freshwater lakes west of the Mississippi River.
Published Jun 2, 2019
Roughly the same size of Belgium, Canada’s Great Slave Lake runs nearly 2,000 feet deep.
Published May 24, 2019
Lago 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, 2004
Rains from Tropical Cyclone Rusty raised water levels in Lake Disappointment in early March 2013.
Published Mar 4, 2013
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