Lake Mead Rises as Video Shows Billions of Gallons of Water Released

Lake Mead has seen a steady rise in water levels over the past few days after the release of a huge number of gallons of water from Arizona's Glen Canyon Dam.

A video posted by the social media channel Las Vegas Locally shows the enormous amount of water being redistributed. The viral clip has been viewed more than 350,000 times since it was posted Sunday.

The video's caption reads: "Lake Mead has risen over 2 feet in the last 5 days after the release of billions of gallons of water from Arizona's Glen Canyon Dam into the Grand Canyon."

The released water is expected to flow through the Grand Canyon and replenish sandbars and beaches. It will also help to move sediment downriver, all the way down to Lake Mead, which lies on the border between Nevada and Arizona.

This release of water is part of the wider effort by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to increase the lake's water levels. This process is known as a high-flow experiment. The bureau undertakes these experiments sporadically, depending on how much water is available.

Lake Mead, which has experienced record-low water levels in recent weeks, is a reservoir on the Colorado River and was formed by the Hoover Dam. Created in the 1930s, it's the largest reservoir in the U.S. by volume.

Lying on the Nevada-Arizona border, Lake Mead provides essential water for drinking and agriculture for around 25 million people across the Southwest.

Andrea Achilli, an associate professor of the Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering at the University of Arizona, previously spoke to Newsweek about the reasons for the fall in water levels.

"Prolonged drought and over-allocation have dramatically reduced the amount of water in the Colorado River and the stored water in Lake Mead and Lake Powell," she said. "They are the largest reservoirs in the U.S. and are essential to the management of the Colorado River Basin. We are experiencing the driest conditions in the last 1,200 years."

Lake Mead is fed by meltwater from the Rockies, but a significant amount of water is needed to help refill the lake.

A research economist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, Tom Corringham, previously told Newsweek, "Statewide snowpack in Colorado is about 120 percent of normal this year, which is a good thing, but refilling Lake Mead and Lake Powell will take years of above-average snowfall.

He continued: "We're definitely hoping for a run of good years, but the long-term outlook is not good. On the basis of climate models, researchers have been predicting this disaster for decades. What's scary is that it's all happening faster than we expected."