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Tso-Ngonpo (Qinghai Lake) Splits into Several Lakes
[Source: Xinhua, February 24, 2004. Courtesy of Tibet Justice Center.] Tso-Ngon, the largest lake on the Tibetan Plateau, has split into one large lake and several smaller ones according to a satellite photograph. "Xu Weixin, an engineer from the Qinghai Provincial Remote Sensing Center, attributed the separation of Qinghai Lake to shrinkage of the water surface as a result of a lowered water level and desertification in the region."
Tso-Ngon covers more than 4,000 square kilometers in area. According to the same report, the water level of Tso-Ngon "has lowered by 3.7 meters in the past three decades and its water surface shrank by 312 square kilometers." "In the 1960s, 108 freshwater rivers emptied into it. However, 85 percent of the rivers around the lake have dried up now, including the Buh River, the lake's largest tributary."