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
Lake 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, 2003
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
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
Straddling Austria and Hungary, the lake is also known as the “Sea of the Viennese.”
Published Apr 10, 2017
Located on the border of Russia and China, Lake Khanka plays an important role in supporting biodiversity in the region.
Published Jun 10, 2019
Drought conditions have dried this closed-basin lake straddling the California-Oregon border, but it’s not the first time.
Published Aug 12, 2015
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
The lake is mostly inhospitable to life, except for a few species adapted to its warm, salty, and alkaline water.
Published May 8, 2017
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
In the desert, a lake shows a long fight between water, wind, and climate.
Published Feb 20, 2012
Drought and water-diversion projects have caused Bolivia’s second-largest lake to dry up.
Published Jan 23, 2016
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
Satellite data suggests this Russian salt lake is getting brighter due to the installation of check dams.
Published Dec 3, 2014
In May 2016, the reservoir behind Hoover Dam reached its lowest level since the 1930s.
Published May 27, 2016
Astronauts aboard the Space Shuttle and Space Station have tracked regional environmental changes spanning decades. Lake Chapala, Mexico’s largest lake, serves as one example of an area experiencing significant changes that have been well documented from space. Over the past twenty years, the lake’s water levels have decreased in conjunction with increasing development from the fast-growing city of Guadalajara.
Published Aug 30, 2004
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
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
Rich in carbonate species and salts, the basin is the largest alkaline lake in the world.
Published Aug 12, 2018
Acquired September 15, 2010, this natural-color image shows flooding along the northern and eastern margins of Pakistan’s Manchhar Lake.
Published Sep 17, 2010
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