Drying Rivers, Lakes and Reservoirs  
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In a new era of conditions dangerously affected by global warming, the world's waters are rapidly running dry, creating crisis for wild habitats and human civilizations. The following are some of the seas, rivers, lakes, and underground water reserves we have lost or are losing, impacting the livelihoods of hundreds of millions people, animals, farming, lives, electricity, and threatening with CO2 and methane release, exacerbating climate change.

  1. World’s major rivers drying - one-third are gone or going.
  2. Groundwater wells for 3 billion people are drying up.
  3. Top 10 global river systems drying, ebbing away:

    China’s Salween River, Europe’s Danube, South America’s la Plata, North American Rio Grande, India’s Ganges, Pakistan’s Indus, Africa’s Nile and Lake Victoria, Australia’s Murray Darling, Southeast Asia’s Mekong-Lancang, China’s Yangtze  
    … due to dams, over-extraction, overfishing and climate change.
  4. Major lakes dried up or drying, not including dangerous side effects such as release of CO2, methane, and other gases

The following is a list of some of the most vital and largest bodies of water which are dying or completely gone.


  1. Rivers from Mt. Kenya
  2. Most lakes in Kenya
  3. Africa’s largest lake, Lake Victoria
  4. Africa’s 4th largest lake, Lake Chad
  5. World’s longest, Nile River
  6. World’s 3rd longest, Niger River
  7. Rivers and streams in Kaoma, Zambia
  8. Tanzania’s Lake Natron
  9. Tanzania’s Lake Manyara


  1. Great Lakes of USA and Canada: Lakes Michigan-Huron, Superior-St. Clair
  2. Emergency water supply from Great Lakes jeopardized
  3. Arctic ponds on Canada’s Ellesmere Island
  4. San Gabriel River, California
  5. Canyon Lake,Texas
  6. 10,000 plus lakes in Alaska
  7. Colorado River
  8. Largest US reservoir, Lake Mead
  9. James River, Virginia
  10. Elephant Butte and Caballo Reservoirs
  11. Upper Colorado River Basin
  12. Thurmond Lake, South Carolina
  13. Brule, Popple, Pine and Menominee Rivers, Wisconsin
  14. Lake Mendocino reservoir in northern California
  15. Folsom Lake reservoir, California
  16. Water bodies near Tampa Bay, Florida, USA
  17. Ogallala Aquifer, USA
  18. Mexico’s Lerma-Chapala-Santiago River Basin
  19. Rio Grande (Rio Norte) River


  1. Chile’s Glacial Lake Tempano
  2. Chile’s Cachet Lake
  3. Iguazu Falls, UNESCO heritage site in Argentina and Brazil
  4. Bolivia’s Lake Poopó
  5. Paraguay’s River water losses lead to declared emergency state
  6. Peru’s aquifer drained too fast
  7. Uruguay’s four main reservoirs critically low


  1. River Greta in Teesdale, UK dried
  2. Britain’s Mersey and Severn Rivers down
  3. Many rivers, lakes estuaries and aquifers in England and Wales, low
  4. Germany’s Elbe River
  5. Germany’s Rhine River
  6. Hungary’s Lake Balaton (Europe’s largest freshwater lake)
  7. Cyprus’ Kourris Reservoir gone, must ship water from Greece
  8. Northern Greece’s Lake Koroneia
  9. Over 1,000 large lakes in Siberia, Russia dried up, likely having drained into to permafrost melting beneath
  10. Turkey’s 2nd largest lake, Lake Tuz, now a desert
  11. Turkey’s lakes and wetlands in Konya Basin dried up
  12. Many of Turkey’s large lakes
  13. Turkey’s Lake Kozanlı
  14. Turkey’s Lake Cavuscu
  15. Turkey’s Lake Meke
  16. Turkey’s largest, River Kızılırmak


  1. Australia’s Murray-Darling River
  2. Lake Colac, largest in Victoria, Australia, dried for 1st time in modern history
  3. Australia’s Lake Boloc
  4. Tasmania’s Craigbourne dam emptied
  5. New Zealand prepares water use restriction as river levels drop


  1. The Hamoun Wetlands, which once connected Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, is now a dustbowl forcing people to move out
  2. Iraq’s famous marshes (believed to be the Garden of Eden) drying up
  3. River Jordan in danger of disappearing


  1. Afhganistan’s Helmand River shrunk
  2. The Chemtal district, north Afghanistan suffering long drought, forcing children to leave school to look for water
  3. Worlds’4th largest inland sea, Aral Sea of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, shrunk
  4. Mongolia’s 852 rivers gone, 1160 lakes and water resources dried
  5. Nepal’s Kulekhani reservoir
  6. Pakistan’s Indus River lost 90% water
  7. Cambodia’s Tonlé Sap, largest freshwater lake in Southeast Asia
  8. India’s sacred Ganges River drying due to glacier loss
  9. Many lakes in Haryana, India dried up
  10. India’s Gambhir Reservoir
  11. Water table dropped in Jharkhand, India
  12. Indrapuri Reservoir along India’s Sone River
  13. The Teesta, largest river in Sikkim state, India
  14. Reservoirs across India’s Kerala state
  15. The Upper Lake in Bhopal, India shrunk
  16. China’s 2nd longest, the Yellow River
  17. China’s Yangtze River
  18. Eastern China’s Ganjiang River
  19. Western China’s Juyan Lake, Aydinkol Lake, Manas Lake
  20. Lake Lop, largest in northwest China
  21. China’s Beijiang River in Guangdong province
  22. Nearly 50% of 4,077 lakes in Tibet’s Madoi County and over 90% of 10,520 lakes in Hebei, China, gone
  23. China’s Yangtze River Basin’s 13,000 sq. km. of lakes lost, including 800 lakes  that completely disappeared
  24. Luhan Reservoir in Henan, China
  25. Mekong River running through Chiangmai, Thailand
  26. The 2 main rivers supporting Âu Lạc’s (Vietnam) Mekong River Delta