Above half of the great lakes and above ground tanks have declined since the early 1990s, mainly due to climate crisis and human consumption, according to a new study, heightens concerns about water sufficiency – for consumption, agriculture and hydropower.

An international team of researchers reports that some of the most important water sources – from the Caspian Sea to Lake Titicaca in South America – have been losing water at a cumulative rate of about 22 gigatonnes per year for almost three decades, the same as the total amount of water consumed by people in the US in during 2015

Fangfang Yao, a surface water hydrologist at the University of Virginia and lead author of a study published Thursday in the journal Science, noted that 56 percent of the decline in natural lakes is due to global warming and human consumption, with warming keeping “the lion part” responsible.

Climatologists have calculated that the arid regions of the planet will become even drier due to climate change, and the wet regions will become even wetter.

Reasons for shrinkage

Scientists estimated about 2,000 large lakes using satellite measurements combined with climate and hydrological models.

They found that unsustainable human consumption, changes in precipitation and runoff, sedimentation and temperature rise led to a drop in lake levels worldwide, with 53% of these bodies of water recording a decline from 1992 to 2020.

According to the study, unsustainable use is reducing the size of lakes such as Aral in Central Asia and Dead Sea in the Middle East, and lakes in Afghanistan, Egypt and Mongolia suffering from rising global temperatures.

This dramatic development has directly affected about 2 billion people worldwide, while many regions have already experienced water shortages in recent years.

Source: Guardian