More than half of the world's lakes have shrunk over the past 30 years, a study has found

More than half of the world's great lakes and reservoirs have shrunk since the early 1990s - mainly due to the climate crisis and human consumption - intensifying concerns about water supplies for agriculture, hydropower and human consumption, a study has found. A team of international researchers reported that some of the world's most important sources of fresh water — from the Caspian Sea between Europe and Asia to South America's Lake Titicaca — have been losing water at a cumulative rate of about 22 gigatons per year over nearly three decades, equivalent to the total water use of the U.S. for an entire year 2015. Fangfang Yao, a surface hydrologist at the University of Virginia who led the study published Thursday in the journal Science , reported that 56 % of the decline in natural lakes was due to global warming and human consumption, with warming accounting for "the larger share". . Climatologists generally think that dry areas of the world will become drier and wet areas wetter due to climate change, but the study found significant water loss even in wet areas. (Reuters)