Lake Poopó, Bolivia, August 2017 and August 2025
Late dry-season views of the basin in 2017 and 2025 show the extent of exposed salt and playa relative to open water, and the partial recovery of the lake over eight years.
2017-08-07
2025-08-15
- Place
- Lake Poopó, Oruro, Bolivia
- Coordinates
- -18.7500, -67.1000
- Acquired
- 2017-08-07 and 2025-08-15
- Region
- Bolivia, Oruro
- Satellite
- Sentinel-2, true color
- Source
- Sentinel-2 Level-2A true-color image, four tiles (19KFU, 19KFV, 19KGU, 19KGV), relative orbit 96
- Catalog
- Microsoft Planetary Computer STAC, collection sentinel-2-l2a
- Resolution
- 60 m ground sample distance
- Scenes
S2A_MSIL2A_20170807T143751_R096_T19KGV_20210210T205804,S2A_MSIL2A_20170807T143751_R096_T19KGU_20210210T205759,S2A_MSIL2A_20170807T143751_R096_T19KFV_20210210T205803,S2A_MSIL2A_20170807T143751_R096_T19KFU_20210210T205755,S2C_MSIL2A_20250815T143801_R096_T19KGV_20250815T191413,S2C_MSIL2A_20250815T143801_R096_T19KGU_20250815T191413,S2C_MSIL2A_20250815T143801_R096_T19KFV_20250815T191413,S2C_MSIL2A_20250815T143801_R096_T19KFU_20250815T191413- Rights
- Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data 2017, 2025. Copernicus Sentinel data is free, full, and open. Rendering by Heimdall Research.
- Credit
- Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data 2017, 2025.
- Published
Context
What this shows
Lake Poopó lies on the Bolivian Altiplano at about 3,700 meters, fed mainly by the Desaguadero River from Lake Titicaca. It is shallow and saline, with no outlet, so its size swings with rainfall and upstream use. In late 2015 it dried almost completely, an event widely reported at the time. These two frames are taken at the end of the dry season, when the lake is at its smallest each year, eight years apart. The 96 by 54 km window covers the whole lake; bright white is salt crust and dry lakebed, green and brown areas are shallow, sediment-laden water.
Lake Poopó is not in the Western Terminal Lakes dataset, which covers six lakes in the western United States; the same method applies to it, and the monthly area for this basin follows the December 2026 release.
Method
How the image was made
Sentinel-2 Level-2A true-color images from the same relative orbit, mosaicked from the four tiles that cover the basin and warped to a common 60-meter grid. Both frames share one brightness and contrast adjustment. No water classification is applied on this page; the area figures are a dataset product, and this page only shows the imagery.
Prints
Prints
Every print carries the place, the date, and the source credit on the mat, as shown. Sizes and paper are quoted with the rights and source resolution confirmed.
This observation
Prints and analysis
Prints are quoted once rights and source resolution are confirmed. Analysis requests get a direct answer about what the imagery can and cannot show.