Activity 2.2 - Hydrosphere: Lake Poopó

 Lake Poopó in Bolivia 2002


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Image from Google



Lake Poopó 2016


https://phys.org/news/2022-11-bolivia-lake-poopo-people-left.html 


Lake Poopó 2023 


 

I decided to write my post on Lake Poopó located in the country Bolivia. I have always been intrigued by lakes, I think they are so pretty, especially the ones people are able to swim in. I love swimming in lakes, so whenever I see a lake badly maintained or shrunken down it makes me sad. Now Lake Poopó used to be a large body of water, it used the be the second largest in Bolivia, but overtime it shrinked to almost no water. In this weeks module I learned about hydrosphere/cryosphere, and when looking at lake Poopó I believed hydrosphere is the cause for the empty lake. The hydrologic cycle is the water cycle with water from one reservoir to another. This is caused by heat energy from the sun, and the gravitational pull from the earth or in other words evaporation. In the first image im showing is lake Poopó in 2002 when it was full with water, and the second picture is when it was completely dry with only dry mud covered in salt. Although from what I read about lake Poopó is that it has been through many droughts throughout the years. However, in 2016 is when people really noticed that the lake was probably gone forever. One of the causes for the lake drying up is due to the lack of rain, and a rise in high temperatures. I think global warming does play a huge role when it comes to bodies of water shrinking, because it not only happens with lakes but also glaciers. As seen with lake Poopó it used to be beautiful with even fishes in the water that the people that lived nearby would use as food. Although when the drought of the lake happened this caused mostly a lot of people to move away. In Bolivia they also don't have much restrictions when it comes to water management policies so I think thats another reason.




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