LAKE MEAD • HOOVER DAM

Hoover Dam, which formed Lake Mead, is located in Black Canyon approximately 30 miles east of Las Vegas, NV in the Mojave Desert, Arizona-Nevada (Figure 1). At full pool, Lake Mead is the largest reservoir in the United States by volume.
Its deepest point is 532 feet at full capacity, although the water levels have been lower in recent years. That depth was last met in 1983. Lake Mead is the largest reservoir in the US in terms of water capacity, holding up to 9.3 million gallons of freshwater.
For more than 20 years, the amount of water stored in Lake Mead has declined as Colorado River water uses have exceeded supplies, and climate change is making this worse. Sadly, currently Lake Mead is 36 percent full-or 64 percent empty-with little chance it will refill absent changes in river management.