2,436 articles
Lake Pend Oreille
Lake Pend Oreille, Idaho's largest lake (92,764 acres, over 1,150 ft deep, 5th deepest in the US), a glacial basin tied to Ice Age Floods, regulated by Albeni Falls Dam, with a major kokanee, trout, and waterfowl fishery.
Lake Piso
Lake Piso (also Lake Pisu, Fisherman's Lake): Liberia's largest natural lagoon, in Grand Cape Mount County near Robertsport; first Ramsar site (no. 1306, 2003, 76,091 ha), Multiple Use Reserve, chimpanzees, mangroves, Vai homeland.
Lake Pontchartrain
Lake Pontchartrain (Okwa-ta, "Wide Water") is a 629-square-mile brackish estuary north of New Orleans, formed about 5,000 years ago by Mississippi delta growth, crossed by the Causeway, and fed by Bonnet Carré Spillway diversions.
Lake Poopó
Lake Poopó (Lago Poopó) is a shallow saline lake in the Bolivian altiplano, department of Oruro, once Bolivia's second-largest lake, which essentially dried up in December 2015.
Lake Poso
Lake Poso (Danau Poso), ancient tectonic lake in Central Sulawesi, Indonesia; 323.2 km2, ~400 m deep, ultraoligotrophic, home to at least seven endemic fish species, several possibly extinct from invasive fish and habitat degradation.
Lake retention time
Lake retention time (residence time, flushing time) is lake volume divided by inflow or outflow rate, the mean time water spends in a lake; it ranges from days in small impoundments to centuries in Lake Baikal and governs nutrient retention and water quality response.
Lake Sevan (Սևանա լիճ)
Sevan (Sevana lich, Սևանա լիճ) is Armenia's and the Caucasus's largest freshwater lake, a 1,242 km² alpine lake at 1,900 m in Gegharkunik Province, lowered about 20 m under Soviet irrigation and hydropower schemes and now recovering via the Arpa-Sevan and Vorotan-Arpa tunnels.
Lake St. Clair
Lake St. Clair, or Lac Sainte-Claire, is a shallow freshwater lake between Lake Huron and Lake Erie on the Michigan–Ontario border, covering 430 square miles.
Lake Superior
Lake Superior, largest and deepest of the North American Great Lakes (31,700 sq mi; max depth 1,332 ft), sits in a 1.1-billion-year-old failed rift basin rich in native copper and banded iron, with ice cover declining as the climate warms.
Lake Tahoe
Lake Tahoe, a deep ultra-oligotrophic alpine lake on the California–Nevada border at 6,224 ft elevation, is famed for clarity monitored by Secchi disk since the late 1960s; clarity declined, then plateaued near 69 feet, managed via the 2010 TMDL program.
Lake Tana
Lake Tana, also known as Tana hayk, is a large, shallow freshwater lake in the north-western Ethiopian Highlands and the main source of the Blue Nile River.
Lake Tanganyika
Lake Tanganyika: large deep rift lake in East Africa (Burundi, DR Congo, Tanzania, Zambia), second deepest after Baikal, formed of alternating half-grabens; famed for endemic cichlids and warming-driven stratification.
Lake Tekapo
Lake Tekapo (Takapō) is a 30 km glacial lake at 710 m in New Zealand's Mackenzie Basin, turquoise from glacial flour, feeding the Tekapo hydro scheme and hosting Mt John Observatory.
Lake Texcoco
Lake Texcoco (Lago de Texcoco), largest of the five lakes of Mexico's endorheic Basin of Mexico, site of Tenochtitlan; over 95% drained, now a Ramsar protected area and ecological park on the cancelled NAIM airport site.
Lake Texoma
Lake Texoma is a 74,686-acre reservoir on the Red River formed by Denison Dam (completed 1944) on the Oklahoma-Texas border, known for self-sustaining landlocked striped bass and the world record blue catfish.
Lake Tharthar (بحيرة الثرثار)
Lake Tharthar (بحيرة الثرثار), Iraq's largest lake, is a reservoir formed after 1956 by diverting Tigris floodwater into the Wadi al-Tharthar depression between the Tigris and Euphrates, holding about 85 billion cubic meters for flood control and irrigation transfer.
Lake Titicaca
Lake Titicaca, a large Andean Altiplano lake shared by Peru and Bolivia at about 3,810 m, is South America's largest freshwater lake and the world's highest large navigable lake, sacred to Tiwanaku and Inca cultures.
Lake Toba
Lake Toba (Danau Toba), also called the Toba Caldera, is a volcanic caldera lake in North Sumatra, Indonesia, formed by a supervolcano eruption about 74,000 years ago and now part of a UNESCO Global Geopark.
Lake Turkana
Lake Turkana, formerly Lake Rudolf and called the Jade Sea for its green color, is the world's largest desert lake, stretching 249 kilometers across northern Kenya into Ethiopia.
Lake Urmia (دریاچه ارومیه)
Lake Urmia (دریاچه ارومیه), once called Lake Rezaiyeh, is a hypersaline lake in northwestern Iran and the world's second largest hypersaline lake, now about 90% dried up.
Lake Van
Lake Van (Turkish: Van Gölü) is a large soda lake in eastern Anatolia, Turkey, the largest soda lake and third largest terminal lake on Earth after the Caspian Sea and Lake Issyk-Kul.
Lake Victoria
Lake Victoria, Africa's largest lake and Earth's second largest freshwater body, lies between Uganda, Kenya, and Tanzania and feeds the White Nile. Key facts: 42 million dependents, Nalubaale Dam outflow control, Nile perch introduction, water hyacinth, eutrophication.
Lake Victoria Basin
Lake Victoria Basin, East Africa drainage basin of Lake Victoria (68,800 km² lake, 193,000+ km² catchment) shared by Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi; home to 42+ million people, endemic haplochromine cichlids, Nile perch fishery, and EAC-managed transboundary governance.
Lake Vostok
Lake Vostok (Vostok Subglacial Lake), East Antarctica's largest subglacial lake: over 250 km long, 14,000 km2, beneath about 4 km of ice at about -3 degrees C; drilled into by Russia in 2012; microbes found in accreted ice.
Lake Vyrnwy
Lake Vyrnwy (Llyn Efyrnwy) is a reservoir in Powys, Wales, built 1881-1888 to supply Liverpool, the first large masonry dam in Britain, now an RSPB nature reserve and National Nature Reserve.
Lake Wairarapa
Lake Wairarapa, also part of Wairarapa Moana, is a shallow 7,850 ha freshwater lake in the southern North Island of New Zealand, the Wellington Region's largest lake, supertrophic, protected by a 1989 water conservation order and a 2020 Ramsar designation.
Lake Wakatipu
Lake Wakatipu (Whakatipu) is a 290 km² zigzag glacial lake in Otago, New Zealand, up to about 400 m deep, drained by the Kawarau River, oligotrophic, protected by the 1997 Kawarau Water Conservation Order, home of the 1912 TSS Earnslaw.
Lake Warden system
Lake Warden system, a Ramsar-listed (7 June 1990) complex of saline lakes and marshes near Esperance, Western Australia, covering about 1,999 ha, important for hooded plover, chestnut teal and 25 migratory waterbird species.
Lake Washington
Lake Washington is a large freshwater lake in King County, Washington, forming Seattle's eastern border; the second-largest natural lake in Washington State, it was lowered 9 feet in 1916.
Lake Winnipeg
Lake Winnipeg is a large shallow lake in Manitoba, Canada, about 23,750 km², a remnant of glacial Lake Agassiz draining via the Nelson River to Hudson Bay; known for its commercial walleye fishery, hydroelectric regulation since 1976, and severe eutrophication from Red River phosphorus.