Weather dries up reservoirs in American West, facing water and power shortages

Lakes Mead in the US states of Nevada and Arizona and Powell in Utah and Arizona are currently at their lowest levels. If they continue like this, they will become mere puddles, which would mean that the water level in the dams would be so low that they would no longer be able to flow downstream and power the hydroelectric plants.

The Lake Mead Reservoir, the largest man-made body of water in the United States, was created in the 1930s with the construction of the Hoover Dam, an engineering masterpiece. Lake Powell, the second largest, was created in the 1960s with the construction of the Glen Canyon Dam.

“Conditions in the American West, that we’re seeing around the Colorado River basin, have been so dry for more than 20 years that you don’t talk about drought anymore,” said Lis Mullin Bernhardt, an ecosystem expert at United Nations Environment Program (UNEP). “We refer to this situation as ‘aridification’, a very dry new normal.”

Lake Mead and Lake Powell not only provide water and electricity to tens of millions of people in Nevada, Arizona, California, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, and Mexico, they also provide irrigation water for agriculture. Experts warn that as the crisis worsens, water cuts will have to be introduced, but this may not be enough.

Water causes 90% of catastrophes

“Although the regulation and management of water supply and demand are essential both in the short and long term, climate change is at the heart of this issue,” said María Morgado, head of Ecosystems at the UN agency. in North America. “In the long term we need to address the root causes of climate change as well as the demand for water.”

In the last 20 years, 90% of major catastrophes were caused by floods, droughts and other water-related phenomena. With more frequent droughts, people in water-scarce areas will increasingly rely on groundwater for its buffering capacity and resilience to climate variability.

The increased demand for water due to population growth and irrigation for agriculture has been exacerbated by the effects of climate change, such as reduced rainfall and rising temperatures. The increase in temperature causes an increase in the evaporation of surface water and in the cooking of the earth, reducing soil moisture.

“We’re talking about a 20-year period of drought-like conditions with ever-increasing demand for water,” Bernhardt said.

“These conditions are alarming, and particularly in the Lake Powell and Lake Mead region, it’s the perfect storm.”

planetary trend

This is part of a broader trend that affects hundreds of millions of people around the planet. As climate change wreaks havoc on Earth’s interconnected natural systems, drought and desertification are fast becoming the new normal, everywhere from the United States to Europe to Africa.

Drought in Numbers (Drought in numbers), a 2022 report from the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, revealed that since 1970 weather, climate and water hazards have accounted for 50% of all disasters and affect 55 million people. people every year in the world. The report also revealed that 2.3 billion people face water stress annually.

Drought is also one of several factors influencing land degradation, since between the 20% to 40% of the world’s land is classified as degradedaffecting half of the world’s population and impacting cropland, drylands, wetlands, forests and grasslands.

The United Nations Decade for Ecosystem Restorationof which UNEP is one of the main members, was created to stop and restore ecosystems around the world.

The Decade runs until 2030, the same deadline as the Sustainable Development Goals, and aims to counteract climate change and halt the collapse of biodiversity by restoring ecosystems