A view of bales in the Great Salt Lake basin. Credit: Brian Richter/Sustainable Waters The Great Salt Lake is shrinking, and new research published Tuesday reports that saving it requires reducing the amount of farmland that is irrigated in the region. In recent decades, climate change and the overconsumption of water from the rivers that feed into the Great Salt Lake have left the largest saline lake in the U.S. with 70 percent less water. The lake now covers just half the expanse it once did. By far the biggest human-caused driver of the lake’s depletion is agriculture, with 71 percent of the water that once replenished it going to farms. Of that, 80 percent goes to alfalfa and hay that primarily feed cattle. “When you look at the specifics of agriculture, there’s just one major, big source [irrigated livestock feed crops] for the withdrawals,” said Oregon State University ecologist and distinguished professor William Ripple, a coauthor of the study . Newsletters We deliver climate news to your inbox like nobody else. Every day or once a week, our original stories and digest of the web’s top headlines deliver the full story, for free. ICN Weekly Saturdays Our #1 newsletter delivers the week’s climate and energy news – our original stories and top headlines from around the web. Get ICN Weekly Inside Clean Energy Thursdays Dan Gearino’s habit-forming weekly take on how to understand the energy transformation reshaping our world. Get Inside Clean Energy Today’s Climate Twice-a-week A digest of the most pressing climate-related news, released every Tuesday and Friday. Get Today’s Climate Breaking News Daily Don’t miss a beat. Get a daily email of our original, groundbreaking stories written by our national network of award-winning reporters. Get Breaking News It’s a similar story across the Western half of […]
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