Panama Canal Water Shortage Explained

Most people picture the Panama Canal as a channel between two oceans, but it really runs on rain, because every ship is lifted on fresh water from Gatun Lake and every crossing lets some of that water run down to the sea. In this video we explore what happens when the rain fails, why the lake is shared by the ships and by more than half of Panama's people, and why a water shortage, rather than the size of its locks, has become the canal's real limit. CHAPTERS 0:00 160 ships and not enough water 0:57 A lake in the middle 2:27 Stairs made of water 3:56 One lake, two jobs 5:06 Bigger locks, saltier lake 7:06 The year the rain stopped 9:03 Cutting back before the dry season 10:50 A second lake 12:35 Answers If you enjoyed the story, a like and a subscription really help a small channel. And tell us in the comments which great structure we should explore next. MUSIC Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... "Fluidscape", "Overheat", "Soaring" IMAGES AND FOOTAGE Used under Creative Commons licences (titles and links in the reply under the pinned comment; images were cropped, graded and animated): European Union, Copernicus Sentinel-2 (2023): CC BY 4.0 Balou46: CC BY-SA 4.0 DeVerm: CC BY-SA 3.0 (2 images) Mariordo (Mario Roberto Durán Ortiz): CC BY-SA 4.0 (10 images) Mir Rodriguez: CC BY-SA 3.0 Sandra Cohen-Rose and Colin Rose from Montreal, Canada: CC BY-SA 2.0 Jean-Philippe Boulet: CC BY 3.0 (2 images) Gary Bembridge: CC BY 2.0 ---=XEON=---: CC BY 3.0 (2 images) Dr. Thomas Liptak: CC BY-SA 4.0 Eric Titcombe: CC BY 2.0 ESA, Copernicus Sentinel data (2020–22): CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO David Brossard: CC BY-SA 2.0 Mariordo (Mario Roberto Durán Ortiz): CC BY-SA 3.0 (2 images) ArnoldReinhold: CC BY-SA 4.0 Harley Flowers from Mobile, USA: CC BY-SA 2.0 Katja Schulz from Washington, D. C., USA: CC BY 2.0 Jcorrea21: CC BY-SA 3.0 (2 images) Public domain and CC0: U.S. National Archives, Library of Congress, Rijksmuseum, NASA (Earth Observatory, Scientific Visualization Studio, HLS satellite data), U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, U.S. military footage and photographs (DVIDS, U.S. Navy), USDA Agricultural Marketing Service (report clippings), Panama Canal Company archive photographs. The appearance of U.S. Department of War (DoW) visual information does not imply or constitute DoW endorsement. Video clips from Pexels (free to use): Rafael Castro, Concep Arroyo, Ezequiel Alfonso, JMarc Sire, K, Javier Cedeño. Satellite images contain modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2020–2023), processed by ESA and the European Union. Maps: © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL) and Natural Earth. Licences: CC BY 2.0/3.0/4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... · CC BY-SA 2.0/3.0/4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... · CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... #PanamaCanal #Engineering #Drought