This usually happens in the fall, but the levels of all the Great Lakes are lower than they were one year ago. ... That’s a loss of over 3.5 trillion gallons of water in just a year’s time.

About 40.8 billion gallons of water a day were withdrawn from the Great Lakes basin last year, a 3% decrease compared to the previous year, a study found.

Total water withdrawals (which encompass uses from public supply to many industrial uses) for all five Great Lakes were 35.4 billion gallons of water per day, 13% lower than that used in 2022.

The five Great Lakes have a combined surface area of 94,250 square miles, roughly the size of the United Kingdom. And they vary greatly, with depths ranging from 210 feet in Lake Erie to over ...