By Express press service

NEW DELHI: Global warming has led to the evaporation of water that could have been used by 27 million people, a new study published in Nature found

Satellite imagery-based study of quantified evaporative water loss from 1.42 million lakes and reservoirs worldwide over the past 30 years warns global warming may put severe pressure on resources water as the demand for agricultural, industrial and domestic water continues to increase in the future.

The paper finds that long-term trend attributions include an increase in evaporation rate (58%), a decrease in lake ice cover (23%), and an increase in lake area (19%). . In total, annual evaporation from global lakes from 1985 to 2018 is 15.4% higher than the previous model-based estimate.

For most of the nine thermal regions of the world, the volume of lake evaporation has increased over the past 34 years due to both an increased rate of evaporation and an increasing lake area. The rate of evaporation can be affected by warming temperatures and high solar radiation.

Compared to natural lakes, evaporative water losses and their associated trends from reservoirs are more pronounced. This amount of evaporative loss from the reservoir is equivalent to 20% of the world’s annual water consumption, he said.

From 1985 to 2018, evaporative water loss from reservoirs increased at a rate of 5.4% per decade, well above the global trend for all 1.42 million lakes (2.1% per decade).

The study attributed climate change as one of the factors in the long-term trend in the volume of evaporation from the lake.

“An increase in global air temperature can increase evaporation from lakes and reduce ice. There are 1.09 million lakes (77%) that fall into this category. The climate effect is particularly notable in high latitudes (e.g. Canada and northern Eurasia) and high altitude regions (e.g. Tibetan Plateau) Given the amplifying effect of climate change in these regions, we we expect an accelerated increase in evaporation in the future,” he noted.

The authors said the findings have important environmental, societal and economic implications, as global evaporative loss will be accelerated in the future with global warming.

“Given the large temperature increase in high latitude and high altitude regions, the loss of lake ice may result in greater heat absorption and larger open areas to evaporate,” he said. added.