Image: Bolivian salt lakes from orbit

This Copernicus Sentinel-2 picture options salt flats and lakes in southwest Bolivia, close to the crest of the Andes Mountains.

Acquired in April 2024, this false-color picture exhibits a part of the Oruro Division in direction of the southern finish of the Altiplano, a excessive plain that stretches virtually 1,000 km from Peru to Bolivia.

The picture was processed utilizing the near-infrared channel which highlights vegetation in pink. As seen within the picture, this a part of the Altiplano is usually arid with saline soils.

Some 40,000 years in the past, this space was a part of a large lake that dried up, forsaking two salt flats: Uyuni (not pictured) and Coipasa, seen in grey and light-weight blue within the bottom-left nook. It additionally left behind two lakes: Poopó, the bigger water physique close to the middle of the picture, and Uru Uru, simply above Poopó.

Lake Poopó is a saline lake and covers roughly 1,000 sq km. It’s an endorheic basin, which implies water is misplaced by means of evaporation.

Nonetheless, the lake’s shallow nature, with a median depth of simply 3 m, has made its water degree very delicate to fluctuations. That is clear to see within the picture, as a part of the lakebed surrounding the water seems grey and dry. Within the final many years, the lake has totally evaporated on some events, with catastrophic penalties for the area’s natural world and for the financial system.

The lake’s major tributary, the Desaguadero River, is seen north of the lake, dyeing its blue waters in numerous hues of inexperienced.

North of Poopó, the Uru Uru Lake’s principally pink floor signifies the presence of vegetation populating its shallow waters.

With its frequent revisits over the identical space and high-resolution cameras working in 13 spectral bands, Copernicus Sentinel-2 can be utilized to watch air pollution in lakes, measure adjustments of their water levels and detect variations in sparsely vegetated areas, in addition to the mineral composition of soil.