In view of the drought, the American West is threatened by power and water shortages, experts warn

Two of the largest reservoirs in America, which provide water and electricity to millions of people, are at risk of becoming a “dead basin” as a result of the climate crisis and excessive water use, experts say.

Lake Mead in Nevada and Arizona and Lake Powell in Utah and Arizona recorded their lowest water levels ever last year. Dead pool status would mean that water levels in the dams are so low that they can no longer flow downstream and supply electricity to hydroelectric plants.

Lake Mead, the largest man-made body of water in America, was created in the 1930s by the construction of the Hoover Dam, a feat of engineering. Lake Powell, the second largest, was created in the 1960s by the construction of the Glen Canyon Dam.

“The conditions we see in the American West around the Colorado River basin have been so dry for more than 20 years that we no longer call it drought,” said Lis Mullin Bernhardt, an ecosystem expert with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). “We call it ‘desertification’ – a new, very dry 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, but also provide irrigation water for agriculture. Experts warn that as the crisis deepens, water cuts will be necessary, but that may not be enough.

causes

“While regulating and managing water supply and demand is essential in both the short and long term, climate change is at the heart of this issue,” said Maria Morgado, UNEP’s ecosystem officer in North America. “In the long term, we need to address both the root causes of climate change and water demand.”

Over the past 20 years, 90 percent of all large-scale disasters have been caused by floods, droughts and other water-related events. As droughts become more frequent, people in water-scarce regions will increasingly rely on groundwater for its buffering capacity and resilience to climate variability.

The increasing demand for water due to growing populations and irrigation for agriculture is exacerbated by the effects of climate change such as reduced rainfall and rising temperatures. A rise in temperature leads to increased evaporation of surface water and drying of the earth, which reduces soil moisture.

New Normality

This is part of a larger trend affecting hundreds of millions of people around the world. As climate change destroys Earth’s interconnected natural systems, drought and desertification are quickly becoming the new normal everywhere from the United States to Europe and Africa.