Lake Mead Recedes

  • Released Tuesday, April 28, 2026
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Lake Mead has the largest storage capacity of any reservoir in the U.S. However, decades of increasing water demand and drought in the American West have caused a continual decline in water levels. This time series shows the gradual shrinkage of Lake Mead’s shorelines, which now sit lower than any time since the 1930s.

A natural-color Landsat time series of Lake Mead spanning from 1985 to 2025, highlighting its dramatic shrinkage and water loss over time.

Credits

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NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

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Datasets used

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This page was originally published on Tuesday, April 28, 2026.
This page was last updated on Wednesday, May 6, 2026 at 3:12 PM EDT.