Buffalo Boy's Blog

Lake Mead is a lake in the southwest that is more than just a tourist attraction. It provides water to 8 million people in San Diego, Las Vegas and Los Angeles. If this lake dries, the people of this area of the country goes thirsty.

Lake Mead is currently at half capacity and has been drying up due to a strain on the increase demand for water in this area due to increasing population and increasingly dry years due to climate change.

This really should be no secret that there is a water shortage in the desert and that global warming is only making it drier. Moutain glaciers that should be feeding the lake are shrinking, less mountain snow and ice equals less water in Lake Mead.

This is not an area where the problem will be fixed easily either. The solution will have to be conservation and sacrifice. Its a problem that many should have seen coming, The Colorado river has been stressed for years now and doesn't even end in the Gulf of California any more, it ends about 100 miles short of where it did because the communites of the southwest have grown and put a strain on a scarce resource. That in combination with the increasing problems from global warming and climate change spells trouble in the coming years.

In the picture above you can see how far the lake has gone down on the sides. According to some reports I have read, the lake is losing 10 ft a year. That is staggering and shows just how much we can change our environment by abusing natures resources.