Colorado River has lost 10tn gallons of water since 2000 due to climate crisis

Volume of water lost equal to Lake Mead, US’s largest reservoir, or enough water to fill around 15bn Olympic-sized pools, study finds

The climate crisis has caused the ailing Colorado River basin, a system relied upon by 40 million people in the US west, to lose more than 10tn gallons of water in the last two decades, new research has found.

The volume of water lost due to rising global temperatures has been so enormous that it is equal to the entire storage capacity of Lake Mead, the US’s largest reservoir that was formed by the Hoover Dam, or enough water to fill around 15bn Olympic-sized swimming pools.