Lake Titicaca
Lake Titicaca is a large freshwater lake in the Andes mountains on the border of Bolivia and Peru.
It is often called the highest navigable lake in the world.
By both volume of water and by surface area, it is the largest lake in South America.
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The waters of Lake Titicaca are within 25 cm of their all-time low, a record set in 1996.
Water levels are the result of climate change and the outlook is not good.
It is very probable that they keep falling until they hit even lower levels.
Lake Titicaca is the highest of the world’s large lakes and largest in South America after Venezuela’s Lake Maracaibo, which is connected to the Caribbean Sea, and Brazil’s Lagoa dos Patos, a coastal lagoon.
The level of Lake Titicaca has been progressively decreasing due to many meteorological, hydrological and climatic factors.
The rainfall and the inflow to the lake from Peruvian rivers were not sufficient to generate the normal rises in times of rain.
Other stresses impact the lake. It is heavily polluted by waste from the city of El Alto, a metropolis of one million people in the landlocked country.
Additionally, indiscriminate fishing has decimated species.
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