Lake Mead, one of the West's linchpin reservoirs, could go dry in 15 years if climate and water use trends don't change, researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography said Tuesday.
SAN DIEGO – Lake Mead, one of the West's linchpin reservoirs, could go dry in 15 years if climate and water use trends don't change, researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography said Tuesday.
Without the reservoir, residents in Southern California and Nevada would be highly vulnerable to yearly changes in rainfall and water deliveries would become “highly unstable,” said climate experts Tim Barnett and David Pierce at Scripps, which is part of UC San Diego.
The two scientists reported that trends in snowpack, river runoff and air temperatures – three fundamental indicators of the status of the West's water cycle – point to a decline in the region's water supply as the population and water demand grows.
“We were stunned at the magnitude of the problem and how fast it was coming at us,” Barnett said. “Make no mistake, this water problem is not a scientific abstraction, but rather one that will impact each and every one of us that live in the Southwest.”
The Lake Mead-Lake Powell system includes the stretch of the Colorado River in northern Arizona. Aqueducts carry the water from the river to cities such as Las Vegas, Los Angeles and San Diego. Currently, the system is only at half-capacity because of a recent string of dry years.
Scripps' study builds on earlier reports about the impact of climate change in the Southwest. In 2007, the National Research Council said global warming and soaring population growth across the Southwest threaten to overwhelm the Colorado River system.
Droughts across the Southwest may have been longer and more severe than scientists previously understood, the council report said. The study also said the evidence strongly suggests that gradual temperature increases will further reduce the Colorado River's flows.
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