Many people believe that climate change cannot harm the environment. However, one poll can change your mind from now on.
Because climate threats and human actions are endangering the world’s largest lakes, which hold 87% of the Earth’s freshwater. Its volume has drastically decreased and poses a global threat that deserves attention.
These lakes play a critical role in providing water for the maintenance of ecosystems, biodiversity and human wellbeing. They are also of great importance for climate regulation and provide resources for our survival. For this reason, such areas require more appropriate monitoring.
Photo: Blog do Hurb/Reproduction
Study shows lakes around the world are drying up
A recent study, published May 18 in the journal Science, used satellite observation data to gain a better understanding of the situation. This new tracking method pioneered the assessment of water storage in lakes based on this information.
The study was led by Fangfang Yao, a researcher at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES).
The research was conducted to talk about the environmental crises that are drastically affecting some of the world’s largest bodies of water, as in the case of the Aral Sea drying up between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.
Because of the concerns raised, Yao worked with colleagues from research centers in the US, France and Saudi Arabia to develop a technique that would make it possible to analyze changes in water levels in nearly 2,000 of the world’s major lakes and reservoirs.
All this to better understand what causes these lakes to lose so much water. Study experts then used three decades of satellite observations, climate data and hydrological models to identify statistically significant storage declines in the world’s largest lakes.
According to the results, the analyzed water bodies experienced a 53% decrease in volume, with climate change and human water consumption being the main causes of this phenomenon.
The study found water loss in about 100 major lakes, and many of the impacts associated with this decline were previously unknown.
Sedimentation has been shown to be one of the key factors in the decline in water storage. In longestablished reservoirs, sedimentation was more pronounced than droughts and periods of heavy rain.
Therefore, it is important to keep an eye on such issues to avoid this water loss.