Watch the Vegas time-lapse again, but look at Lake Mead, not Las Vegas.
EDIT: As for the scale of the Amazon deforestation, by zooming and scrolling the time-lapse map at the bottom of the article, I watched what looks like very nearly the entire Brazilian state of Rondônia go from rainforest to grassland in the 30-ish year period depicted. (Wikipedia says that 70k km² of its 200k km² of rainforest was cleared by 2003, while the map goes to to 2012.) [1]
Not a great indicator of environmental collapse, but a good one for a drought. I would imagine the people in charge of that artificial lake would love it if it would tide just a bit more at this point.
But I don't think they have as much control you suggest, I do believe they have obligations of letting amounts of water to go downriver for the farmers south of the dam.
I lived there for a number of years, the animated map does not do justice of showing how low the lake is, if you visit the dam you can see the water lines on the dam wall (hah!) and the shores around it. It's not just how much width the water has receded, but how deeply as well.
Ah great point. This will be really interesting to observe the changes in the water level over the next few years, since Las Vegas is now very efficient with its water usage and has some pretty hard limits on water usage, if I remember correctly.
I noticed that as well when I watched the Vegas timelapse. I wish there was an overlaying scale showing how much of the water receded, it looked like a significant amount.
EDIT: As for the scale of the Amazon deforestation, by zooming and scrolling the time-lapse map at the bottom of the article, I watched what looks like very nearly the entire Brazilian state of Rondônia go from rainforest to grassland in the 30-ish year period depicted. (Wikipedia says that 70k km² of its 200k km² of rainforest was cleared by 2003, while the map goes to to 2012.) [1]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rond%C3%B4nia