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.
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.
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.
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.