Satellites reveal widespread decline in global lake water storage.

Fangfang Yao; Ben Livneh; Balaji Rajagopalan; Jida Wang; Jean-François Crétaux; Yoshihide Wada; Muriel Berge-Nguyen

doi:10.1126/science.abo2812

Satellites reveal widespread decline in global lake water storage.

Fangfang Yao, Ben Livneh, Balaji Rajagopalan, Jida Wang, Jean-François Crétaux, Yoshihide Wada, Muriel Berge-Nguyen

Biological, Environmental Sciences and Engineering

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

168 Scopus citations

Abstract

Climate change and human activities increasingly threaten lakes that store 87% of Earth's liquid surface fresh water. Yet, recent trends and drivers of lake volume change remain largely unknown globally. Here, we analyze the 1972 largest global lakes using three decades of satellite observations, climate data, and hydrologic models, finding statistically significant storage declines for 53% of these water bodies over the period 1992-2020. The net volume loss in natural lakes is largely attributable to climate warming, increasing evaporative demand, and human water consumption, whereas sedimentation dominates storage losses in reservoirs. We estimate that roughly one-quarter of the world's population resides in a basin of a drying lake, underscoring the necessity of incorporating climate change and sedimentation impacts into sustainable water resources management.

Original language	English (US)
Pages (from-to)	743-749
Number of pages	7
Journal	Science (New York, N.Y.)
Volume	380
Issue number	6646
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abo2812
State	Published - May 18 2023

Bibliographical note

KAUST Repository Item: Exported on 2023-05-22
Acknowledgements: Funding: This study was supported by NOAA Cooperative Agreement with CIRES (NA17OAR4320101) to F.Y., NASA NIP grant (80NSSC18K0951) to B.L., and the “Climate Change Initiative Grant (4000125030/18/I-NB) to J.-F.C. and M.B.-N.” We thank A. Temme, C. Martin, S. Nerem, and J. Rosentreter for comments on the results and K. Yang and K. Bogan for suggestions and assistance on the visualizations. We thank P. Lin for sharing the latest version of the GRADES data and H. Beck for sharing the latest version of the MSWEP data for our analyses. Assistance for processing climate and human water use datasets was provided by K. Yang. We also thank L. Patterson for help with downloading the in situ data of reservoirs and L. Pitcher and E. Knight for proofreading our manuscript. We thank C. Schwatke, C. Birkett, and S. Cooley for making the altimetry-derived water level data publicly available.

ASJC Scopus subject areas

General

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

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10.1126/science.abo2812

Cite this

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title = "Satellites reveal widespread decline in global lake water storage.",

abstract = "Climate change and human activities increasingly threaten lakes that store 87% of Earth's liquid surface fresh water. Yet, recent trends and drivers of lake volume change remain largely unknown globally. Here, we analyze the 1972 largest global lakes using three decades of satellite observations, climate data, and hydrologic models, finding statistically significant storage declines for 53% of these water bodies over the period 1992-2020. The net volume loss in natural lakes is largely attributable to climate warming, increasing evaporative demand, and human water consumption, whereas sedimentation dominates storage losses in reservoirs. We estimate that roughly one-quarter of the world's population resides in a basin of a drying lake, underscoring the necessity of incorporating climate change and sedimentation impacts into sustainable water resources management.",

author = "Fangfang Yao and Ben Livneh and Balaji Rajagopalan and Jida Wang and Jean-Fran{\c c}ois Cr{\'e}taux and Yoshihide Wada and Muriel Berge-Nguyen",

note = "KAUST Repository Item: Exported on 2023-05-22 Acknowledgements: Funding: This study was supported by NOAA Cooperative Agreement with CIRES (NA17OAR4320101) to F.Y., NASA NIP grant (80NSSC18K0951) to B.L., and the “Climate Change Initiative Grant (4000125030/18/I-NB) to J.-F.C. and M.B.-N.” We thank A. Temme, C. Martin, S. Nerem, and J. Rosentreter for comments on the results and K. Yang and K. Bogan for suggestions and assistance on the visualizations. We thank P. Lin for sharing the latest version of the GRADES data and H. Beck for sharing the latest version of the MSWEP data for our analyses. Assistance for processing climate and human water use datasets was provided by K. Yang. We also thank L. Patterson for help with downloading the in situ data of reservoirs and L. Pitcher and E. Knight for proofreading our manuscript. We thank C. Schwatke, C. Birkett, and S. Cooley for making the altimetry-derived water level data publicly available.",

year = "2023",

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doi = "10.1126/science.abo2812",

language = "English (US)",

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pages = "743--749",

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T1 - Satellites reveal widespread decline in global lake water storage.

AU - Yao, Fangfang

AU - Livneh, Ben

AU - Rajagopalan, Balaji

AU - Wang, Jida

AU - Crétaux, Jean-François

AU - Wada, Yoshihide

AU - Berge-Nguyen, Muriel

N1 - KAUST Repository Item: Exported on 2023-05-22 Acknowledgements: Funding: This study was supported by NOAA Cooperative Agreement with CIRES (NA17OAR4320101) to F.Y., NASA NIP grant (80NSSC18K0951) to B.L., and the “Climate Change Initiative Grant (4000125030/18/I-NB) to J.-F.C. and M.B.-N.” We thank A. Temme, C. Martin, S. Nerem, and J. Rosentreter for comments on the results and K. Yang and K. Bogan for suggestions and assistance on the visualizations. We thank P. Lin for sharing the latest version of the GRADES data and H. Beck for sharing the latest version of the MSWEP data for our analyses. Assistance for processing climate and human water use datasets was provided by K. Yang. We also thank L. Patterson for help with downloading the in situ data of reservoirs and L. Pitcher and E. Knight for proofreading our manuscript. We thank C. Schwatke, C. Birkett, and S. Cooley for making the altimetry-derived water level data publicly available.

PY - 2023/5/18

Y1 - 2023/5/18

N2 - Climate change and human activities increasingly threaten lakes that store 87% of Earth's liquid surface fresh water. Yet, recent trends and drivers of lake volume change remain largely unknown globally. Here, we analyze the 1972 largest global lakes using three decades of satellite observations, climate data, and hydrologic models, finding statistically significant storage declines for 53% of these water bodies over the period 1992-2020. The net volume loss in natural lakes is largely attributable to climate warming, increasing evaporative demand, and human water consumption, whereas sedimentation dominates storage losses in reservoirs. We estimate that roughly one-quarter of the world's population resides in a basin of a drying lake, underscoring the necessity of incorporating climate change and sedimentation impacts into sustainable water resources management.

AB - Climate change and human activities increasingly threaten lakes that store 87% of Earth's liquid surface fresh water. Yet, recent trends and drivers of lake volume change remain largely unknown globally. Here, we analyze the 1972 largest global lakes using three decades of satellite observations, climate data, and hydrologic models, finding statistically significant storage declines for 53% of these water bodies over the period 1992-2020. The net volume loss in natural lakes is largely attributable to climate warming, increasing evaporative demand, and human water consumption, whereas sedimentation dominates storage losses in reservoirs. We estimate that roughly one-quarter of the world's population resides in a basin of a drying lake, underscoring the necessity of incorporating climate change and sedimentation impacts into sustainable water resources management.

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JO - Science (New York, N.Y.)

JF - Science (New York, N.Y.)

IS - 6646

ER -

Satellites reveal widespread decline in global lake water storage.

Abstract

Bibliographical note

ASJC Scopus subject areas

UN SDGs

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