{"id":1990,"date":"2026-07-04T03:25:19","date_gmt":"2026-07-04T02:25:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/sediment-could-block-half-of-the-worlds-water-reservoirs-by-2060\/"},"modified":"2026-07-04T03:25:21","modified_gmt":"2026-07-04T02:25:21","slug":"sediment-could-block-half-of-the-worlds-water-reservoirs-by-2060","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/sediment-could-block-half-of-the-worlds-water-reservoirs-by-2060\/","title":{"rendered":"Sediment Could Block Half of the World’s Water Reservoirs by 2060"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

A broad study reveals that our planet loses, each decade, a significant portion of its freshwater storage capacity due to sediment buildup. By 2060, half of our reservoirs could be deemed \u201cfunctionally dead.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

A Global Situation<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Dams prevent silt, sand, and gravel from flowing downstream, so over time these materials accumulate in these artificial reservoirs, thereby reducing the amount of water they store. To make matters worse, this phenomenon can also compromise the safety of such facilities and affect local ecosystems.<\/p>\n

Read also<\/span> A historic June for the oceans, between a world record and strong regional anomalies<\/span><\/section>\n

Recently, Kai Liu of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and colleagues combined satellite imagery, sediment analyses, and machine learning to assess the state of more than 550 000 reservoirs worldwide. Their work reveals an amount of freshwater lost annually due to sedimentation exceeding 36 cubic kilometers, a volume comparable to that stored by the Three Gorges Dam in China.<\/p>\n

According to the team, a freshwater reservoir becomes \u201cfunctionally dead<\/em>\u201d once its sediment concentration exceeds 50 %. This fate is expected to befall nearly 85 % of Australian reservoirs and 75 % of Spanish reservoirs by 2060. Globally, this scenario will affect the vast majority of water bodies in arid regions and half of those in wetland areas.<\/p>\n

\u00ab The world loses more than 7 % of its freshwater storage capacity every decade, meaning that the water supply for more than 2 billion people, as well as irrigation for over a quarter of our cultivated lands, are at risk<\/em> \u00bb, write the authors of the new study, published in the journal Nature Sustainability<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Read also<\/span> In the English Channel, environmental DNA helps inventory marine species ahead of wind turbine installations<\/span><\/section>\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n

A Global Situation<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Un probl\u00e8me, des solutions<\/p>\n

Un probl\u00e8me, des solutions<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Pour Ian Wright, de l\u2019universit\u00e9 occidentale de Sydney, ces conclusions sont particuli\u00e8rement pr\u00e9occupantes. \u00ab Avec la hausse des pr\u00e9cipitations li\u00e9e au changement climatique<\/strong>, la situation devrait s\u2019aggraver, en gardant \u00e0 l\u2019esprit que ces r\u00e9servoirs devront approvisionner une population croissante<\/em> \u00bb, d\u00e9taille-t-il.<\/p>\n

Afin de rem\u00e9dier \u00e0 cela, l\u2019\u00e9quipe \u00e9voque le reboisement, ainsi que d\u2019autres strat\u00e9gies de stabilisation des sols en amont des barrages pour lutter contre l\u2019\u00e9rosion.<\/p>\n

\u00ab Des solutions d\u2019ing\u00e9nierie telles que le dragage et la construction de tunnels de d\u00e9rivation seront \u00e9galement n\u00e9cessaires, mais leur co\u00fbt sera faramineux<\/em> \u00bb, explique Liu. \u00ab Probablement de l\u2019ordre de 100 milliards de dollars<\/em>. \u00bb<\/p>\n

Read also<\/span> Heatwaves and solar panels: why a green roof can limit output losses<\/span><\/section>\n

Il y a quelques semaines, des chercheurs avaient annonc\u00e9 la d\u00e9couverte d\u2019un vaste r\u00e9servoir d\u2019eau \u00e0 faible salinit\u00e9 sous l\u2019oc\u00e9an Atlantique, qui pourrait contribuer \u00e0 r\u00e9pondre aux p\u00e9nuries se profilant.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1991,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1844,1845,1843,484,468],"class_list":["post-1990","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-block","tag-reservoirs","tag-sediment","tag-water","tag-worlds","generate-columns","tablet-grid-50","mobile-grid-100","grid-parent","grid-50"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1990"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1990\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1992,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1990\/revisions\/1992"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}