Panama Canal Operations Faltering - Ongoing Drought, More Evaporation Cut Water Needed To Run It
The Panama Canal’s handover from the United States 20 years ago has been marked in Panama amid water supply worries. Managers say less rainfall due to climate change has depleted the inter-ocean conduit’s Gatun Lake. President Laurentino Cortizo hoisted a giant Panamanian flag outside Canal headquarters Tuesday as its operators mused over low water levels — compounded by its expansion in 2016 into a third lane to serve mega ships transiting between Asia and the US eastern seaboard.
Recurrent droughts left the 80 kilometer-long (50 mile) system of locks with only 3 billion cubic meters of water this past year, instead of the 5.2 billion cubic meters needed, according to the canal authority (ACP).
Gatun Lake, which sustains the waterway and provides local drinking water, is also losing volume by evaporation, with its temperature up 1.5° Celsius in the past decade. Administrator Ricaurte Vasquez on Tuesday blamed climate change, drawing attention to Panama’s costly ideas of desalinating seawater or building reservoirs.
Currently, the region’s rainfall deficit is 27% compared with the average, said the ACP. Already, canal officials fear that ships transiting Pacific-Atlantic waters across the narrow Central American isthmus will opt for other global routes, such as Egypt’s Suez Canal or Arctic transits north of Russia or Canada as polar ice melts.
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https://desdemonadespair.net/2020/01/water-shortages-dog-panama-canal-20-years-after-its-transfer-it-really-has-been-the-driest-dry-season-weve-had-in-the-history-of-the-canal.html
