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SCIENCESaturday 23 January 2016
Disappearance of Bolivia’s No. 2 lake a harbinger
CARLOS VALDEZ A fisherman walks along the abandoned boats in the dried up Lake Poopo, on the outskirts of Poopo is now down to 2
Associated Press Untavi, Bolivia. The overturned fishing skiffs lie abandoned on the dried up former shores of what percent of its former water
UNTAVI, Bolivia (AP) — was Bolivia’s second-largest lake. level, regional Gov. Victor
Overturned fishing skiffs lie Hugo Vasquez calculates.
abandoned on the shores (AP Photo/Juan Karita) Its maximum depth once
of what was Bolivia’s sec- reached 16 feet (5 meters).
ond-largest lake. Beetles factors are in play in the for agriculture. Gutierrez, who moved to Field biologists say 75 spe-
dine on bird carcasses and demise of Bolivia’s second- More than 100 families have a nearby town where he cies of birds are gone from
gulls fight for scraps un- largest body of water be- sold their sheep, llamas and ekes by as a motorcycle the lake.
der a glaring sun in what hind Lake Titicaca. alpaca, set aside their fish- taxi driver.Record-keeping While Poopo has suffered
marshes remain. Drought caused by the ing nets and quit the former on the lake’s history only El Nino-fueled droughts for
Lake Poopo was officially recurrent El Nino meteo- lakeside village of Untavi goes back a century, and millennia, its fragile eco-
declared evaporated last rological phenomenon is over the past three years, there is no good tally of the system has experienced
month. Hundreds, if not considered the main driver. draining it of well over half people displaced by its dis- unprecedented stress in
thousands, of people have Authorities say another fac- its population. Only the el- appearance. At least 3,250 the past three decades.
lost their livelihoods and tor is the diversion of water derly remain. people have received hu- Temperatures have risen
gone. High on Bolivia’s from Poopo’s tributaries, “There’s no future here,” manitarian aid, the gover- by about 1 degree Celsius
semi-arid Andean plains mostly for mining but also said 29-year-old Juvenal nor’s office says. while mining activity has
at 3,700 meters (more than pinched the flow of tribu-
12,000 feet) and long sub- taries, increasing sediment.
ject to climatic whims, the Florida Institute of Technol-
shallow saline lake has es- ogy biologist Mark B. Bush
sentially dried up before says the long-term trend
only to rebound to twice of warming and drying
the area of Los Angeles. threatens the entire Ande-
But recovery may no lon- an highlands.
ger be possible, scientists A 2010 study he co-au-
say. “This is a picture of the thored for the journal Glob-
future of climate change,” al Change Biology says
says Dirk Hoffman, a Ger- Bolivia’s capital, La Paz,
man glaciologist who stud- could face catastrophic
ies how rising temperatures drought this century. It pre-
from the burning of fossil fu- dicted “inhospitable arid
els has accelerated glacial climates” would lessen
melting in Bolivia. available food and water
As Andean glaciers disap- this century for the more
pear so do the sources of than 3 million inhabitants of
Poopo’s water. But other Bolivia’s highlands.q
