Global assessment and hotspots of lake drought
Abstract Many lakes have exhibited substantial variability in recent years, making “lake drought” a growing concern. However, there is no established framework for identifying and studying lake droughts. Here, we propose a reliable definition for it and provide a global assessment of over 160,000 la...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Nature Portfolio
2025-04-01
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| Series: | Communications Earth & Environment |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-025-02285-2 |
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| author | Xing Cheng Shuo Wang Jianli Chen Amir AghaKouchak |
| author_facet | Xing Cheng Shuo Wang Jianli Chen Amir AghaKouchak |
| author_sort | Xing Cheng |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Abstract Many lakes have exhibited substantial variability in recent years, making “lake drought” a growing concern. However, there is no established framework for identifying and studying lake droughts. Here, we propose a reliable definition for it and provide a global assessment of over 160,000 lakes (≥1 km2) using monthly area data from 1985 to 2018. Our findings show that 15.7% of lakes have experienced statistically significant increasing trends in drought frequency (p < 0.05), with hotspots in the Southern United States at 52.7% and Southeast Australia at 70.4%. Furthermore, we identify two severe lake drought events in the Southern United States (2012–2014) and Southeast Australia (2007–2010), posing dramatic threats to water supplies, biodiversity, and ecological health. Rising trends in lake drought are driven by increasing temperature, vapor pressure deficit, and factors associated with the lake water cycle, such as precipitation deficit, increased evaporation, and excessive water withdrawal. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-e77e599723f249d6a212c120cc70937b |
| institution | OA Journals |
| issn | 2662-4435 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-04-01 |
| publisher | Nature Portfolio |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Communications Earth & Environment |
| spelling | doaj-art-e77e599723f249d6a212c120cc70937b2025-08-20T02:19:58ZengNature PortfolioCommunications Earth & Environment2662-44352025-04-016111210.1038/s43247-025-02285-2Global assessment and hotspots of lake droughtXing Cheng0Shuo Wang1Jianli Chen2Amir AghaKouchak3Department of Land Surveying and Geo-Informatics, The Hong Kong Polytechnic UniversityDepartment of Land Surveying and Geo-Informatics, The Hong Kong Polytechnic UniversityDepartment of Land Surveying and Geo-Informatics, The Hong Kong Polytechnic UniversityDepartment of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of California, IrvineAbstract Many lakes have exhibited substantial variability in recent years, making “lake drought” a growing concern. However, there is no established framework for identifying and studying lake droughts. Here, we propose a reliable definition for it and provide a global assessment of over 160,000 lakes (≥1 km2) using monthly area data from 1985 to 2018. Our findings show that 15.7% of lakes have experienced statistically significant increasing trends in drought frequency (p < 0.05), with hotspots in the Southern United States at 52.7% and Southeast Australia at 70.4%. Furthermore, we identify two severe lake drought events in the Southern United States (2012–2014) and Southeast Australia (2007–2010), posing dramatic threats to water supplies, biodiversity, and ecological health. Rising trends in lake drought are driven by increasing temperature, vapor pressure deficit, and factors associated with the lake water cycle, such as precipitation deficit, increased evaporation, and excessive water withdrawal.https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-025-02285-2 |
| spellingShingle | Xing Cheng Shuo Wang Jianli Chen Amir AghaKouchak Global assessment and hotspots of lake drought Communications Earth & Environment |
| title | Global assessment and hotspots of lake drought |
| title_full | Global assessment and hotspots of lake drought |
| title_fullStr | Global assessment and hotspots of lake drought |
| title_full_unstemmed | Global assessment and hotspots of lake drought |
| title_short | Global assessment and hotspots of lake drought |
| title_sort | global assessment and hotspots of lake drought |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-025-02285-2 |
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