How cities run dry
… Bogotá and Mexico City’s stories mirror those of cities across the globe. The amount of water stored in lakes worldwide has drastically and steadily decreased since 1992, according to a 2023 study published in the prestigious research journal Science. During those 30 years, freshwater lakes collectively lost an average of 600 cubic kilometers of water storage annually – 17 times the volume of Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the United States. … The cause is a combination of human-caused overuse and unprecedented shifts in the climate, the researchers found. Increasing temperatures, accelerated evaporation, and unpredictable shifts in rain and snow patterns and the runoff these events create have made urban water sources increasingly unstable. These factors, coupled with unsustainable water consumption, are responsible for about half the water losses over the last 30 years.