Utah’s Great Salt Lake dropped to its lowest recorded water level last month as a megadrought persists across the US southwest. This has forced the fast-growing city to curb its water use. From space, satellite images show how water levels have dramatically fallen from 1985 to 2022 – exposing large
from the US Geological Survey , the Great Salt Lake’s surface water elevation fell to the lowest level since records began in the mid-1800s, to an average of 1277 m above sea level. As a result of this drop in water level, the lake has lost nearly half of its surface area from the historical average, exposing around 2000 sq km of lakebed – an area the same size as Tenerife.
The satellite images below reveal how water levels have fallen from 1985 to 2022 , exposing large expanses of the lakebed.Great Salt Lake 2022. Credit: USGS/contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data , processed by ESA Declining water levels also impacts the local air quality. As the bottom of the lake dries up and more lakebed is exposed, the dry soil leads to an increase of dust in the air. The dust is laced with copper, arsenic, and other dangerous heavy metals that have accumulated in the lake, much of it being residue from mining activity in the region.
This image shows the average aerosol concentrations near the open-areas of the lake bed produced using Copernicus Sentinel-5P data from 1 June to 15 July 2022. The exposed lake bed of the Great Salt Lake could impact public health in the long term. As the bottom of the lake dries up and more lakebed is exposed, the dry soil leads to an increase of dust in the air.
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