Lake drying up as temperatures rise

LA PAZ: Bolivia’s Lake Poopo was once a fountain of life for local inhabitants, who fished from its teeming waters and farmed along its banks. Now it is a desert.

Scientists say the one-time lake, which sprawls across Bolivia’s sundrenched, high-altitude altiplano, has fallen victim to decades of water diversion for regional irrigation needs.

And a warmer, drier climate has made its recovery unlikely.

The lake, Bolivia’s second largest, is very shallow, and has ebbed and flowed, say scientists and the lake’s long-time Aymara inhabitants.

Jorge Molina, a researcher with the Universidad Mayor de San Andres, says the Andes are outpacing the global average temperature rise, which means evaporation has ramped up.