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cbabe

(4,116 posts)
Fri Sep 27, 2024, 11:46 AM Sep 27

an Argentinian lake the size of New York City disappears

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2024/sep/26/how-did-an-argentina-lake-the-size-of-new-york-city-disappear-lake-colhue-huapi-musters-patagonia

‘We used to sail and fish and play’: how did an Argentinian lake the size of New York City disappear?

Drought and mismanagement have turned Lake Colhué Huapí into a virtual dustbowl. Now the race is on to save its sister lake from the same fate

Victoria Traxler in Sarmiento, Argentina
Thu 26 Sep 2024 06.00 EDT

From the top of a hill, Yeni Szlapelis, 46, looks out over the arid plateaus of south-central Argentina at the sources of her greatest worries. To the east, dust clouds emerge from the remains of a dry lake the size of New York City: the Colhué Huapí. To the west, Lake Musters, an essential source of water for the region shimmers under the scorching sun.



Szlapelis, an agronomist who grew up in the area, often visits this spot on her trail runs and follows the receding shores of the two lakes. As a researcher at the National Institute of Agricultural Technology (INTA), she knows the region’s valleys and farmland well, having worked there for 20 years. Her verdict is clear: if nothing is done to improve water management, the disappearance of both lakes will be irreversible.

“The sad thing is that it’s getting worse,” she says.

… more… farmers, ranchers… towns…disease…



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an Argentinian lake the size of New York City disappears (Original Post) cbabe Sep 27 OP
Yup jfz9580m Sep 27 #1

jfz9580m

(15,352 posts)
1. Yup
Fri Sep 27, 2024, 01:38 PM
Sep 27
More than 500,000 people in these areas depend on water from the Senguer River basin. And the strain is growing alongside the region’s population.

By measuring flow rates at more than 45 different irrigation sites in the upper basin, they found nearly seven times more water was being extracted for agricultural use than was being carried by the aqueducts to supply water to the three coastal cities.


Two major problems even if we switch to cleaner energy sources-population sizes that are simply unsustainable whatever the Vance types say and our shockingly nightmarish food system (factory farming, deforestation for cattle feed, the waste produced).


So their solution is a dam. Wonder how that will work out…
It seems as if the water wars are here to stay anyway :-/ (especially with ai gobbling up more water now):

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20210816-how-water-shortages-are-brewing-wars

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/dams-california-water-wars


An actually intelligent alien species that had some notion of science & enlightenment values based stewardship of natural resources would consider us myopic, crass and barbaric sadly..
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