From the Las Vegas Sun:

Its no secret that Las Vegas needs water, and its also no secret that Las Vegas is struggling to meet the ever increasing demand for water. The photo below shows just how far water levels have dropped in Lake Mead, Vegas’s primary supply of water.

Levels havent been this low since 1937 when the lake was first filled.

The light grey area seen on the photograph is a watermark caused by scale deposits that happened while that area was under water.

Its already 114 feet lower today than it was in 2000 and the Scripps Institute of Oceanography and the University of California, San Diego believe that the lake could be entirely drained by 2021

The answer? At the moment The Southern Nevada Water Authority hopes that a new 300 mile water pipeline that draws in water from as many other local water sources in rural Nevada as possible will solve their immediate need. The cost of this pipeline is estimated to be somewhere between $4bn and $15bn.

Just how long this will stem the inevitable worsening of Nevada’s water situation remains to be seen, as the pipeline is still in planning stages with numerous opponents suggesting that desalination plants would be a much more sustainable solution instead of potentially harming the environment and drawing water from yet another equally finite resource.

What ever happens, Las Vegas is still a city in a desert that has an every increasing thirst for water.