__NOTOC__ Uru Uru Lake is a

lake A lake is often a naturally occurring, relatively large and fixed body of water on or near the Earth's surface. It is localized in a basin or interconnected basins surrounded by dry land. Lakes lie completely on land and are separate from ...

in the

Oruro Department Oruro (; Quechua: ''Uru Uru''; Aymara: ''Ururu'') is a department of Bolivia, with an area of . Its capital is the city of Oruro. According to the 2012 census, the Oruro department had a population of 494,178. Provinces of Oruro The depar ...

Bolivia Bolivia, officially the Plurinational State of Bolivia, is a landlocked country located in central South America. The country features diverse geography, including vast Amazonian plains, tropical lowlands, mountains, the Gran Chaco Province, w ...

. It is fed by the Desaguadero River and the Jach'a Jawira. It is situated at an elevation of 3,686 m, its surface area is 214 km². The lake is formed by the flow of the Desaguadero River at its mouth into

Lake Poopó Lake Poopó ( ) was a large saline lake in a shallow depression in the Altiplano in Oruro Department, Bolivia, at an altitude of approximately . Due to the lake's length and width (), it made up the eastern half of Oruro, known as a mining r ...

, over the extensive sedimentation known as "Santo Tomás" from the small hermitage found there that was completely inundated. The formation dates to 1962. The river connects

Lake Titicaca Lake Titicaca (; ; ) is a large freshwater lake in the Andes mountains on the border of Bolivia and Peru. It is often called the highest navigable lake in the world. Titicaca is the largest lake in South America, both in terms of the volume of ...

and Lake Poopó.

Ecology

The lake used to be a tourist attraction for boating and fishing, as it contained a large number of fish. During a long drought in 2016, the lake lost almost all of its water. This was described by local media and experts as an environmental catastrophe caused by several factors, including climate change and the use of water for mining. , a large part of the lake is covered by trash. Much of it is plastic from nearby Oruro where residents dump their refuse. There is also contamination from run-off from nearby mines as the town

Oruro Oruro (Hispanicized spelling) or Uru Uru is a city in Bolivia with a population of 264,683 (2012 calculation), about halfway between La Paz and Sucre in the Altiplano, approximately above sea level. It is Bolivia's fifth-largest city by populat ...

is an industrial mining center. The lake is polluted by heavy metals such as

cadmium Cadmium is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol Cd and atomic number 48. This soft, silvery-white metal is chemically similar to the two other stable metals in group 12 element, group 12, zinc and mercury (element), mercury. Like z ...

zinc Zinc is a chemical element; it has symbol Zn and atomic number 30. It is a slightly brittle metal at room temperature and has a shiny-greyish appearance when oxidation is removed. It is the first element in group 12 (IIB) of the periodic tabl ...

, and

arsenic Arsenic is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol As and atomic number 33. It is a metalloid and one of the pnictogens, and therefore shares many properties with its group 15 neighbors phosphorus and antimony. Arsenic is not ...

Gallery

File:Lago Uru Uru Chipaya 1.jpg File:Lago Uru Uru Chipaya 7.jpg File:Oruro y el Lago Uru Uru.jpg

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Uru Uru Lakes of Oruro Department Ramsar sites in Bolivia Tourist attractions in Oruro Department Environmental disasters Altiplano

Ecology

Gallery

See also

References