More than half of the world's largest lakes have lost significant amounts of water over the past 30 years, scientists say. This is due to climate change and overuse of water resources, according to CNN..

An international team of scientists claims that about a quarter of the world's population lives on the banks of drying reservoirs.. And although lakes cover only 3% of our planet, they contain about 90% of fresh water.. Lakes are important sources of water for drinking, irrigation of plantations, and also play a crucial role in the survival of animals and plants..

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But now they're in trouble. The water level in the lakes fluctuates in response to natural climate fluctuations in the form of rainfall and snowfall.. But it is increasingly influenced by human activities..

And all over the world in lakes that play an important role, there is a rapid decline in water levels.. Lake Mead on the Colorado River in the southwestern United States has retreated dramatically due to megadrought and decades of overuse. The Caspian Sea between Asia and Europe - the world's largest inland body of water - has long been shrinking due to climate change and water use.

Fangfang Yao, lead author of the study and visiting fellow at the Collaborative Institute for Environmental Science Research at the University of Colorado at Boulder, notes that lake declines around the world have already been documented, but the magnitude of the declines and the causes that cause them are not as well understood..

During the study, scientists studied satellite images of two thousand lakes and reservoirs, which contain about 95% of the water in the Earth's lakes.. By studying more than 250,000 satellite images taken from 1992 to 2020, as well as climate models, they were able to reconstruct the history of the lakes.

Study results were 'stunning', scientists say. It turned out that 53% of lakes and reservoirs lost a significant amount of water, with a net decrease of about 22 billion metric tons per year - an amount that the authors of the report compared with the volume of 17 Meads lakes..

Scientists say climate change and human activities are responsible for the loss of more than half of lake water.. At the same time, water loss is recorded all over the world, including the tropics and Antarctica..

The report says that excessive water consumption is the main reason for the drying up of the Aral Sea in Uzbekistan and the Salton Sea in California, while changes in precipitation and runoff have led to the decline of the Great Salt Lake.

In the Arctic, the number of lakes is declining due to a combination of changes in temperature, precipitation, evaporation and runoff.

Previously, scientists said that global warming can change the color of the lakes. They will no longer be blue, but will turn brown or green..