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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
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
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
Inle Lake is home to floating tomato farms and booming tourism.
Published Apr 1, 2015
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
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
The lake is mostly inhospitable to life, except for a few species adapted to its warm, salty, and alkaline water.
Published May 8, 2017
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
Located on the border of Russia and China, Lake Khanka plays an important role in supporting biodiversity in the region.
Published Jun 10, 2019
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 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
Declining water levels in this saline lake in northwestern China have exposed playa prone to producing dust storms.
Published Nov 25, 2014
Fine particles of pulverized rock absorb and scatter sunlight in ways that can give water a striking blue-green color.
Published May 20, 2019
Acquired on August 11, 1984 (top), and September 1, 2009 (bottom), these true-color images show dramatic expansion of Devils Lake in North Dakota. In the 1990s, the lake began flooding, spilling into neighboring Stump Lake.
Published Feb 14, 2010
At the juncture of the border between China and Russia sits Lake Khanka, also known as Lake Xinghai. Due to their importance to plant and animal species, the lake and the surrounding wetlands are protected by the Ramsar Convention, an international treaty for the protection and sustainable use of wetlands. Migratory birds that frequent this lake include several endangered species, such as the Japanese crane.
Published Feb 18, 2007
