The Colorado River is drying up due to a combination of chronic overuse of water resources and a historic drought. The dry period has lasted more than two decades, spurred by a warming climate primarily due to humans burning fossil fuels.
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Colorado River crisis is so bad, lakes Mead and Powell are unlikely to refill in our lifetimes. Boaters are dwarfed by a white bathtub ring around Lake Mead.
What happens if Lake Mead dries up forever? If Lake Mead were to run out of water, the Hoover Dam would no longer be able to generate power or provide water to surrounding cities and farms. The Colorado River would essentially stop flowing, and the Southwest would be in a major water crisis.
It's worrying to see the lake's water level decline but the chances of it fully drying up are very slim. The Hoover Dam and Lake Mead still do so much important work for the southwest USA, in terms of both water supply and power generation.
Fortunately, that is not the case. Earth contains huge quantities of water in its oceans, lakes, rivers, the atmosphere, and believe it or not, in the rocks of the inner Earth. Over millions of years, much of this water is recycled between the inner Earth, the oceans and rivers, and the atmosphere.