Water is an essential and indispensable component of humanity’s everyday existence. As the global population grows and the climate warms, so does the water demand. Over the past two decades, global reservoirs have become increasingly empty despite an overall increase in total storage capacity due to the construction of new reservoirs. Led by Dr. Huilin Gao, associate professor in the Zachry Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Texas A&M University, researchers used a new approach with satellite data to estimate the storage variations of 7,245 global reservoirs from 1999 to 2018. The researchers published their findings in Nature Communications. Overall, global reservoir storage increased at an annual rate of 28 cubic kilometers, attributed to the construction of new reservoirs. However, despite these efforts, the data reveals that the rate of reservoir filling is lower than anticipated. Given the projected decline in water runoff and the rising water demand, the observed trend of diminishing storage returns from reservoir construction is expected to continue, potentially impacting water supplies with significant implications. These findings indicate that addressing future water demands cannot rely solely on constructing new reservoirs, emphasizing the need for novel management strategies. The analysis did not consider the sedimentation process, and therefore the overall storage decline presented in this study is conservative.
