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Long-term and extreme water level variations of the shallow Lake Poopo, Bolivia

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Author

Summary, in English

Lake Poopo, within the large Altiplano basin of Bolivia, is connected upstream to Lake Titicaca and downstream to the salares, the big salt fields. Small changes in precipitation and river inflows strongly affect the extent of the lake surface area. For times when there are no satellite images, it is difficult to determine the extent of the lake from observations. Water balance computations were performed to create a water-level series for Lake Poopo extending back in time. The dominant water inflow to Lake Poopo is from the River Desaguadero, which constitutes the outflow of Lake Titicaca. The water-balance computations confirm the crude peasant knowledge about historical lake status. It is found that if the lake level is less than I in during the wet season, there is a risk that this shallow lake dries out in the dry season.

Publishing year

2006

Language

English

Pages

98-114

Publication/Series

Hydrological Sciences Journal

Volume

51

Issue

1

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Taylor & Francis

Topic

  • Water Engineering

Keywords

  • water balance
  • ENSO
  • Altiplano
  • palaeolake
  • Lake Titicaca

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 0262-6667