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Lake Mead, the largest artificial reservoir in the United States, fell to a record low of 1,040.4 feet above sea level.
That is below the previous record low of 1,040.58 feet set in July 2022 — the lowest since the reservoir was filled in the 1930s.
It was formed by damming the Colorado River with the Hoover Dam, completed in 1936.
The decline follows a historically low Rocky Mountain snowpack, a warm spring and a multi-decade megadrought.
Falling levels reduce turbine efficiency and threaten Hoover Dam's hydroelectric generation.
Water rights on the Colorado River were divided among seven basin states — Arizona, California, Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming — plus Mexico, on the basis of flow estimates made in an unusually wet period. Those legal allocations have long exceeded the river's average natural flow, so the system runs a structural deficit even in normal years. Add a multi-decade megadrought, rising temperatures and higher evaporation, and reservoir storage falls year on year. This is the core distinction to grasp: the crisis is not only drought, it is a legal framework promising more water than the river carries.
Simple Analogy: Several people holding cheques on one bank account that never had enough money to honour all of them.
GS Paper I > World Geography > Water Resources; GS Paper III > Environment and Climate Change
General Awareness > World Geography
Which river is known as the 'Sorrow of Bihar'?
Answer: Kosi
The volume of water covering one acre to a depth of one foot, roughly 1,233 cubic metres — the standard US water measurement unit.
An exceptionally severe drought persisting for decades.
Accumulated seasonal snow whose melt feeds rivers; the Colorado depends on Rocky Mountain snowmelt.
The pale mineral band on reservoir walls marking former high-water levels.