2025/12/28 by james Ferrin · 1 voice
Environmental Science · #Hydrology and Watershed Management Studies #Aquatic Ecosystems and Phytoplankton Dynamics #Flood Risk Assessment and Management
paper · doi:10.5281/zenodo.18356157
openalex publication_date 2025/12/28 · openalex created_date 2026/01/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/01
Impoundments represent the largest unmeasured anthropogenic source of depletion in the Great Salt Lake Basin. Using satellite imagery, aerial datasets, and surface‑area‑based evaporation modeling, we quantified 478,175 acres of human‑built impoundments and 4.07 million acre‑feet of upstream reservoir storage. These structures generate 1.7–2.2 million acre‑feet of annual evaporation and 1.6–3.2 million acre‑feet of non‑return storage, exceeding the combined depletion attributed to agricultural, municipal, and industrial use. Sectoral accounting frameworks that begin measurement after storage and conveyance omit these losses, obscuring the dominant role of impoundments in reducing lake inflows. Because the Great Salt Lake is endorheic, upstream evaporation and long‑term storage translate directly into diminished lake elevation, revealing the full hydrologic cost of impoundment growth. Integrating reservoir evaporation, non‑return storage, agricultural evapotranspiration, and mineral extraction into a unified depletion budget provides a more accurate basis for management and for understanding the lake’s decline. These findings highlight the need for basin‑scale accounting approaches that reflect the complete hydrologic footprint of human infrastructure in closed and water‑limited systems.