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7 lakes and rivers that are drying up: Bone dry
7 lakes and rivers that are drying up
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Photo:
giladr/Flickr
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'ngwa Van
Dec 12 2012 at 3:55 AM
So sad!
People together we should stand up for environment for its continual provision of services and goods.
Dave in England
May 10 2012 at 4:24 PM
This is just one small sign of the altering Climate (I am waiting for the it's all Lies nonesense Pundits), Massive Car & Aircraft use especially plus all other, is changing conditions. In Asia crop Yields are dropping badly as wetlands dry, in Africa vaste swathes of land culitvated for Centuries are now barren.
In the next Foreign Wars of Occupation US & Western Media will pursuade us we have to Invade to provide food-prevent Chaos. Like bombing all these Villages out in Afghanistan
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does anything but ensure more 9-11's on us!
sadly most Americans do not know-believe that UN UK USA Murdered around 1 Million Iraqi Babies-Kids with Stopping all food imports all Medicines 110,000 bombing raids on food factories food silos drinking water plant! see 'paying the price killing the children of Iraq' very very sad but True!
Wilco Wayne
Oct 22 2011 at 10:50 AM
The Aral Sea: The water was diverted in the 1960s by the Soviets for growing cotton crops in Uzbekistan. Water was diverted from the main rivers of Uzbekistan:from the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya, and their inflow to the Aral Sea thus decreased.to only 10 percent, by the 1980s, of what it was in the 1950s. This loss of inflow along with evaporation and scant rainfall, caused, by 1987, the sea's southern and northern parts to separate. By the end of 1996, the Aral Sea's total water volume area
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had decreased by 57%. The water level of the sea, which received 80 percent of the flow from the Amu Darya dropped 15-18 meters. The Salt level in the Aral Sea rose to that of the ocean. Recently, projects have been initiated to reverse and restore the sea to its former state.
The real lesson here is to live within the bounds of nature and not those of a rising population. Consider too, if the entire world's population were put shoulder to shoulder, they would all fit inside the city of Los Angeles, Ca
Jeremy W
Aug 01 2011 at 10:03 AM
I'm not even a power plant engineer and I find the first paragraph of this article laughable because of it's in-accuracy.
Power plants do use water to make steam, but that system is closed, so the water in use if fixed. They aren't consuming large quantities of water to make steam like this article implies.
Power plants do take in large quantities of water to use for cooling, but again, that water is cooled to minimize environmental impact and returned to the source.
This reads like the power plants "
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consume" all that water, but in reality, power plants have zero blame for "drying up" lakes and other bodies of water.
The editors of MNN really should fix stuff like this instead of mis-leading the readers who don't know any better.
Slud
Jul 31 2011 at 1:02 PM
Here's the point Brainiacs, We can safely use only a small percent of the available freshwater without drastically impacting all the other life forms that rely on that same unaltered resource for their abundance and survival. Just because there's 100 gallons in the tank does not mean that we can use all of it and then simple send it back by recycling. Water sent large distances from a aquifer often does not not return again to it's source. Also, in periods of drought, when demand out strips supply,
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the entire ecosystem will crash because we will suck it down to the last drop with no regard for anything other but ourselves.
Barry
Jul 31 2011 at 9:37 AM
What does it mean to use 400 gallons per day? Our comes from Lake Erie, after we use that 400 gallons it goes to a processing plant and, apart from evaporation losses in a settling pond, all goes back to the lake. Statement like this are misleading nonsense. We simply "borrow" the water and put it back, not the same thing as drawing down a deep aquifer.
Jason L.
Jul 30 2011 at 11:28 PM
No mention of the Great Salt Lake? There's not much left to it. Was there 20 years ago, and then again last year. Had to walk a mile farther out from the former shoreline to get to the water.
?
Jul 30 2011 at 6:23 PM
How about a limit? Like 20 gallons a day for each person? Water-saving toilets? Shower timers? Or do we go back to 18th century outhouses? I'm just saying...
the_mick
Jul 30 2011 at 1:27 PM
With the US already short of water in parts of the South every year, one wonders why we've got a policy that allows so many legal immigrants each year it will triple the population by 2100 instead of slightly increasing it due to small typical American family size. I guess it's so we can reduce the pay scale for jobs that once paid well so that the wealthy employers can keep using the excuse, "They'll do jobs Americans won't do."
oh_yeah
Jul 31 2011 at 6:34 AM
It never fails how people throw immigration as the thing to blame, into every single conversation whether relevant or not.
Proud to say that I am a legal immigrant. What I do for a living however, isn't about what American's won't do, and I make over $150K a year doing it. Jealous?
BTW, I have installed many of those water-saving practices that have been talked about in other comments.
Guest
Jul 31 2011 at 11:06 AM
legal immigrants are NOT the problem, ILLEGAL immigrants are and they are NOT just doing jobs that Americans won't do. In Florida, they are building houses, roads, and shopping centers for 1/2 the wages an American OR legal immigrant would.
Guest
Jan 24 2012 at 11:23 PM
As an American, you too are an immigrant. I am embarrassed when I read post's like this, how do you think free market economies work? Why would you taint an article on water consumption with a trash post like this.
Guest
Jul 31 2011 at 1:29 PM
Don't blame the illegal immigrants working for 1/2 the wages. Blame the creeps that hire them!
AmesIA
Jul 29 2011 at 4:23 PM
Home water use is borrowing the water. It ends up treated and back in the river for the next town to drink.
B Jackson
Jul 29 2011 at 11:37 AM
The best line is 'all that water has to come from somewhere." People seem to think that there can be more and more of us...and we're all taking more and more....and there are no repercussions.
Colorado Karen
Jul 29 2011 at 11:17 AM
Here in Boulder, we're awash in water because of the record snow fall this year....but what folks may not realize is that this will be different next year...and the root causes will still be there.
sabra
Jul 27 2011 at 2:19 PM
As I am looking at these pictures in awe, knowing that this is a very real thing, I can't help but notice the Coca Cola ad to the side. Coca Cola is one of the worst out there when it comes to water. They strip communities of their natural water supplies (rivers, streams, etc) & put that water into (Dasani & other) water bottles. Then, they sell those bottles across the world instead of allowing the natural process to take place. In turn, they are depleting water sheds & turning
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previously lush areas into deserts. Ironic...
Bone dry
One of the problems with having a population as large as 6 billion people (and rising) is that it takes a lot of water to keep everything running. We use water to drink, make food, create energy, manufacture products, extract raw minerals from the Earth and everything else in between. The average family of four can use 400 gallons of indoor water or more every day, to say nothing of the massive quantities of water used by businesses, farms and industry. The driver of our civilization, electricity, is generated by turbines using massive amounts of water; about half of the total water use in the U.S. is by power plants.
All that water has to come from somewhere, and it shouldn't be surprising to learn that there are a lot of places around the world that are literally drying up (like the Aral Sea, seen here). It's never been harder to be a large body of water. In the face of warming temperatures caused by climate change on top of the strong and increased demand placed on supply by human needs, some of the world's largest lakes, rivers and seas are growing smaller with every season.
When we use more water than is naturally put back into the system, we draw down the overall supply. That simple equation is the brutal reality for seven of the following dried up lakes, rivers and seas. (Text: Shea Gunther)
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