The Panama Canal Runs on Rain. Here's How It Works

How the Panama Canal works, and why it runs short of water: every ship is lifted 85 feet into Gatun Lake and lowered again by gravity alone, and a crossing through the original locks sent about 194 million liters of fresh water to the sea on average in fiscal 2025. The same lake is drinking water for more than half of Panama. This is the machine, the 2016 water-saving basins and their salt problem, the 2023 drought, the Río Indio reservoir plan, and the dry spell of 2026. Every figure is sourced: the key sources are listed below, and all of them are in the pinned comment. Gatun Lake levels are the Panama Canal Authority's. The canal's fiscal year runs from October to September. The appearance of U.S. Department of Defense visual information does not imply or constitute DoD endorsement. Chapters 0:00 A lake on top of Panama 1:04 A staircase made of water 2:30 The lake is also the tap 3:18 The basins and the salt 4:30 2023: the rain fails 6:42 A new lake 8:10 It happened again Sources • ACP, Design of the Locks: https://pancanal.com/en/design-of-the... • ACP, the expanded canal: https://pancanal.com/en/discover-the-... • ACP, 2006: https://pancanal.com/en/panama-announ... • ACP, 2016: https://pancanal.com/en/first-panama-... • ACP, 2013: https://pancanal.com/en/massive-new-g... • ACP Annual Report 2023: https://pancanal.com/wp-content/uploa... • ACP Annual Report 2024: https://pancanal.com/wp-content/uploa... • ACP Annual Report 2025: https://pancanal.com/wp-content/uploa... • USACE and ACP, 2023: https://pancanal.com/wp-content/uploa... • Re and Badano, IAHR 2019: https://static.iahr.org/34/540.pdf • Official Handbook, 1913: https://archive.org/details/panamacan... • Official Handbook, 1915: https://archive.org/details/officialh... … and 29 more in the pinned comment Credits Footage: Sgt. Daniel Childs, USMC, DVIDS 1017219, 1 Aug 2026, public domain; cut Footage: SPC Dedrick Johnson, DVIDS 693076, 2019, public domain; cut Footage: MC2 Danielle Baker, U.S. Navy, DVIDS 837344, 2022, public domain; cut Footage: U.S. Navy, 'Continuing Promise transits the Panama Canal', 2015, Wikimedia Commons, public domain; cut Drawing: Panama Canal Official Handbook, 1913, public domain 3-D map: Landsat (USGS); heights Copernicus DEM GLO-30 © DLR e.V. 2010-2014 and © Airbus Defence and Space GmbH 2014-2018, provided under COPERNICUS by the EU and ESA; lines © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL) Photo: U.S. Army Air Forces, National Archives 68147982, 1941-47, public domain; cropped Footage: Morrison Mast, 'Panama Canal Timelapse- Caribbean to Pacific', 2014, https://commons.wikimedia.org/?curid=..., CC BY 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... cut, colour-graded, sound removed Photo: Library of Congress LCCN 2006684538, 1913, public domain; cropped Photo: Library of Congress LCCN 96522040, 1914, public domain; cropped Photo: Mariordo (Mario Roberto Durán Ortiz), 2019, https://commons.wikimedia.org/?curid=..., CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... cropped, colour-graded Chart: U.S. EIA, data from the Panama Canal Authority, public domain Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data 2021, 2023 · levels: ACP Satellite: NASA Earth Observatory (Wanmei Liang), Landsat/USGS, 18 Aug 2023, public domain; cropped Photo: Mike Krüger, 2024, https://commons.wikimedia.org/?curid=..., CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... cropped, colour-graded Map: Natural Earth (public domain) Headwater explains how famous places get, hold back and move water, with real maps, real pictures and every figure sourced.