28 Worst Drying Lakes in the World

The World Is Running Out of Fresh Water!

Many of the lakes on this list will dry up within years (a few already have, more or less), but some may take decades to disappear entirely. The reasons vary, but most will expire because of drought, deforestation, overgrazing, pollution, climate change, or water diversions—or all of the aforementioned. Will anybody care? People who live near the lakes and depend on them for making money and/or feeding themselves will almost certainly care a great deal. Most likely, scientists the world over will find this issue concerning as well. How about you?

This list is written in no particular order and includes both lakes and seas—that is, large bodies of water (fresh or salty) surrounded by land.

Please keep reading!

1. Lake Eyre

Found in the state of South Australia, Lake Eyre, also called Lake Kati Thanda by local indigenous people, is a salt lake located in a basin that’s the lowest point of continental Australia—about 50 feet below sea level. Receiving an average rainfall of about five inches per year and fed by seasonal rivers that often disappear during the dry season, Lake Eyre seldom fills entirely. The last time it did was 1984 when it covered an area of about 4,281 square miles. Located in a historically dry place, Lake Eyre doesn’t seem to have much to fear from climate change!

2. Lake Montbel

Located in southwestern France, near the base of the Pyrenees Mountains, Lake Montbel, like many Europeans lakes in the 2020s has nearly run dry. At a mere 28 per cent of capacity as of March 2023, Lake Montbel, once known as a prime spot for viewing wildlife, as well as a wonderful tourist destination, is now in the throes of a drought and heat wave that’s the worst in 500 years! The lake has also been a major source of irrigation, but now local farmers may have to do without. It seems lakes and rivers throughout Europe are suffering from drought, possibly as the result of climate change.

3. Loch Ness

According to reports in 2023, the water level in Loch Ness is at its lowest since 1989. The loch holds more fresh water than all English and Welsh fresh water lakes. Scarcity alerts have been posted throughout Scotland, urging people to use less water while showering, etc. Purportedly home to the mythological Loch Ness Monster, or Nessie, Loch Ness definitely holds a great deal of trout and salmon, which could be adversely affected if the level of the loch continues to drop. The Scottish government has said climate change could lower the loch’s water level even more in the future, but by how much is uncertain.

4. Lake Chad

Dramatic environmental change has hit Africa in recent decades, and the shrinking of Lake Chad is a primary aspect of this pending catastrophe. Once the size of the Caspian Sea, Lake Chad, located in west-central Africa, has lost about 95 per cent of its water since the 1960s. Considered an endorheic body of water (or closed hydrological system), Lake Chad is a shallow lake (30 to 40 feet deep) in an arid grassland and, at one time, covered nearly 400,000 square miles - but that was about 5000 BCE, way before recent times of drought and human expansion in sub-Saharan Africa.

Consequently, the lake’s surface area has shrunk to about 520 square miles, though since 2007 its girth has rebounded somewhat, so maybe Lake Chad won’t disappear entirely any time soon. But if issues such as overuse by people, climate change and desertification are not addressed, it may vanish sooner rather than later.

5. Penuelas Lake

In June 2022, Reuters reported that central Chile is mired in a catastrophic 13-year drought, the worst in at least 400 years! Once a body of water comprising enough water to fill 38,000 Olympic swimming pools, Penuelas Lake has now almost entirely dried up, causing dire water shortages in Valparaiso and other Chilean towns and cities. Experts blame the drought on greenhouse gases thinning of the ozone layer over Antarctica, which reduces the number of storms along the coast of Chile. Agricultural researchers at the University of Chile report that the region will have 30 per cent less water over the next 30 years, so the drought could last decades longer!

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6. Sawa Lake

Once a tourist attraction, a wetlands area for migrating birds, as well as a source of drinking water for the city of Samawa in southern Iraq, Sawa Lake, since it’s a closed body of water with no inlet or outlet, has lived on borrowed time for centuries, if not thousands of years. Its only sources of water have been rainfall and water seeping from the nearby Euphrates River, but drought and diverted ground water have spelled doom for this pitiful, shrinking lake.

Now Sawa Lake is little more than a mud puddle in a vast arid plain with trash scattered in heaps no person or government entity seems to care about cleaning up. Since 2014, the lake has been designated as a protected Ramsar Site, which lists it as wetlands of international importance—so, one may wonder, is Sawa Lake gone forever?

7. Sea of Galilee

Located in northeastern Israel, the Sea of Galilee has numerous biblical references, so it must be troubling for Bible enthusiasts to know that it’s shrinking at an alarming rate! The Sea of Galilee is the lowest fresh water lake in the world and only the Dead Sea is lower in elevation. Even though the lake is fed by natural springs and the Jordan River, rising population in Israel and Jordan, as well as drought conditions since 2018, have dramatically lowered the lake’s level. If its level reaches the so-called black line (214 meters below sea level), no more water could be pumped from the lake and eventually its water would turn saline.

Plans are in the works to build a tunnel from the Mediterranean Sea, through which millions of cubic meters of desalinated water could be sent to the Sea of Galilee—but this project would cost five billion shekels!

8. Walker Lake

Located in the state of Nevada, which is the western region of America’s Great Basin, one of the driest areas in North America, Walker Lake is a natural lake fed by the Walker River, though it has no outlet. Since the middle 1800s, water from the Walker River and its tributaries has been diverted for agriculture, causing the level of Walker Lake to plummet by 180 feet since 1882, when such measurements began. This decline in water level has raised the amount of dissolved solids in the water, causing the lake’s fisheries to collapse—Lahotan cutthroat trout can no longer survive in the lake—this eliminates a source of food for wild birds as well.

The US Fish and Wildlife Service and other federal and state agencies and foundations are trying to secure water rights for the lake, so it can receive more water and thereby reverse the ecological decline of a pretty lake in a very arid land.

9. Aral Sea

Located between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, the Aral Sea is another endorheic lake and one of the four largest lakes in the world as recently as the 1989. Once covering an area of over 26,000 square miles, the Aral Sea is now only about 10 per cent of its original size and has split into four separate bodies of water. The main reason for this desiccation is that since the 1940s much of the water that feeds the lake has been diverted for agricultural usage, primarily to grow cotton, rice, melons and cereal. Unfortunately, this water diversion has mostly destroyed the fishing industry of the lake.

Moreover, the poorly constructed irrigation canals used for the diversion have wasted 30 to 75 per cent of the diverted water. Now the Aral Sea’s remaining water is much saltier and more polluted and therefore practically useless. But the people in the area seem resigned to the fate of the Aral Sea, so it may dry up entirely any day now.

10. Lake Poopo

Located in the Bolivian Altiplano Mountains, Lake Poopo has, in recent years, become little more than a seasonal lake—and a very salty, polluted one as well (much of the time only its wetlands survive from one year to the next). Since the Lake Poopo exists in a very dry area and is only about 10 feet deep on average, and is also found at a very high altitude—more than 12,000 feet—it has a high evaporation rate. Unfortunately, only one river feeds into the lake, the Desaquadero River, which flows from Lake Titicaca, but this lake is also losing water, so the river is too.

This water loss is caused by recent drought and climate change, which has led to the shrinkage of many glaciers throughout South America. Concerned about the demise of Lake Poopo, it has been designated for conservation by the Ramsar Convention. Tragically, this alarm bell may have been wrung much too late. But we can always hope, of course.

11. Lake Urmia

Lake Urmia is a hypersaline lake located in Iran. Formerly the largest saltwater lake in the Middle East, covering over 2,000 square miles, Lake Urmia has shrunk to only 10 per cent or its original size and now holds only five per cent of the water it once had. The reasons for this dramatic water loss are many: the 13 rivers entering the lake have been dammed; increased groundwater pumping has reduced flows into the lake; water diversions; climate change and drought.

Unfortunately for the people of Iran, if Lake Urmia vanishes, so will the tourism it attracts, and the lake’s marshes will dry up too, no longer supporting 226 species of birds and many other animals. But Lake Urmia may survive at least somewhat; Iranian officials are working to persuade neighboring countries such as Armenia and Azerbaijan to divert water to help refill this dwindling water resource.