Some very bad things could be happening in the US Southwest in the not so distant future.
Lake Mead may go dry by 2021
There is a 50 percent chance that Lake Mead, which was created by the Hoover Dam and the Colorado River, will go dry by 2021 because of escalating human demand and climate change, according to a study by Tim Barnett and David Pierce of the
Scripps Institution of Oceanography of the University of California at San Diego.
Lake Mead straddles the Arizona-Nevada border, and Lake Powell is on the Arizona-Utah border. Aqueducts carry water from the system to Las Vegas, Los Angeles, San Diego, and other communities in the Southwest.
The old high water line is at the top of the white band. This was taken two weeks ago.
By 2017, there is a 50 percent chance that the
reservoir could drop so low that Hoover Dam could no longer produce hydroelectric power. Water conservation and mitigation technologies and policies thus need to be implemented now, the study stated.
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