<story><title>Satellites reveal widespread decline in global lake water storage</title><url>https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abo2812</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>ooz16</author><text>Genuine question here. What would be the expected change over the same period? The abstract says 53% of lakes saw declines...does that mean 47% saw no change or gains?  If so, that seems pretty close to net stable to me globally. Or frankly what we would expect to see (some gains, some losses)&lt;p&gt;Also, this is stated later in the doc:&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Between 1984 and 2015, a loss of 90,000 km2 of permanent water area was observed by satellites—an area equivalent to the surface of Lake Superior, whereas 184,000 km2 of new water bodies, primarily reservoirs, were formed elsewhere (14)&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;My first impression was that this means there has been a growth in total permanent water area from 1984-2015. Am I just reading this wrong?</text></comment>
<story><title>Satellites reveal widespread decline in global lake water storage</title><url>https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abo2812</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>Mbioguy</author><text>History may not repeat but it does rhyme. Harappan civ thought to have declined due to less water. Petra once thrived due to a system of dams, cisterns, and water conduits, but never-repaired damage after an earthquake and increasing aridity meant it less and less supported urbanism and so declined. The Soviets overexploited the Aral Sea which has yet to (and will likely never) recover. It is now spoiling the surrounding region with dust storms carrying with them pollutants from industry that settled in the drying lakebed. Owens Lake in California once fed LA, but when it dried up it too caused polluting dust storms. 
Gov&amp;#x27;t has not learned from this history. The western US&amp;#x27;s water rights are outdated to the point of creating utterly backwards incentives. For example, Utah has use-it-or-lose-it water rights and the lion&amp;#x27;s share of water in the Great Salt Lake&amp;#x27;s watershed gets used to grow alfalfa. Alfalfa itself isn&amp;#x27;t necessarily a bad choice if you&amp;#x27;re going to grow stuff in an arid region, the issue is more how much of it is grown and in a wasteful way (little to no drip irrigation and no incentive to start using it, instead farmers are incentivized to flood areas during times of heavy rainfall or risk losing water rights). However even city and residential water use (a much smaller %) is still per capita wasteful compared to nearby Vegas which has done a much better job of becoming efficient in its water use. Utah got lucky this year in its snowpack, potentially buying some time to change, but is that gonna happen? No, they&amp;#x27;re praying for moisture and thinking their prayers got answered. Any guesses how long it&amp;#x27;ll be before the Great Salt Lake becomes the US&amp;#x2F;capitalism&amp;#x27;s Aral Sea? 5 years, 10, 15? Any techies wanting to move out here might think twice, homes without water and with seasonal arsenic-laden dust clouds probably won&amp;#x27;t have much resale value.</text></comment>