The Argentine municipality of Villa Carlos Paz issued a red alert and placed restrictions on drinking water last week as a severe drought gripped the province following one of the worst wildfire seasons in Latin America for two decades.
Drone footage captured on Thursday shows the drought-stricken San Roque Lake, where levels have reportedly dropped to their lowest in the last 12 years, limiting fresh water supply to nearby Cordoba, Argentina's second-largest city.
Local environmentalist Luis Rafael Volkmann attributes the crisis in the region to the 'consequence of climate change'.
"The constant fires in different points of the mountain range cause the destruction of the vegetal cover and the destruction of the soil," Volkmann explained.
"The mountains of Cordoba, without vegetation and without that soil cover, do not allow the water to infiltrate and be retained, and then it runs freely downhill," he continued.
Researchers have urged the public to drop their daily water usage by 30 percent, while authorities in Villa Carlos Paz have imposed fines on residents who don't comply with new regulations limiting consumption.
"Without water, there is no life," Volkmann added. "We slowly extract water that has accumulated for hundreds or thousands of years in the basin. In the subsoil, we extract it as if it were inexhaustible, and it is not.
This summer, Argentina was ravaged by widespread droughts, widely attributed to 'El Nino', a naturally occurring climate pattern that warms the ocean's surface and usually increases global temperatures for up to a year.
The Argentine municipality of Villa Carlos Paz issued a red alert and placed restrictions on drinking water last week as a severe drought gripped the province following one of the worst wildfire seasons in Latin America for two decades.
Drone footage captured on Thursday shows the drought-stricken San Roque Lake, where levels have reportedly dropped to their lowest in the last 12 years, limiting fresh water supply to nearby Cordoba, Argentina's second-largest city.
Local environmentalist Luis Rafael Volkmann attributes the crisis in the region to the 'consequence of climate change'.
"The constant fires in different points of the mountain range cause the destruction of the vegetal cover and the destruction of the soil," Volkmann explained.
"The mountains of Cordoba, without vegetation and without that soil cover, do not allow the water to infiltrate and be retained, and then it runs freely downhill," he continued.
Researchers have urged the public to drop their daily water usage by 30 percent, while authorities in Villa Carlos Paz have imposed fines on residents who don't comply with new regulations limiting consumption.
"Without water, there is no life," Volkmann added. "We slowly extract water that has accumulated for hundreds or thousands of years in the basin. In the subsoil, we extract it as if it were inexhaustible, and it is not.
This summer, Argentina was ravaged by widespread droughts, widely attributed to 'El Nino', a naturally occurring climate pattern that warms the ocean's surface and usually increases global temperatures for up to a year.
The Argentine municipality of Villa Carlos Paz issued a red alert and placed restrictions on drinking water last week as a severe drought gripped the province following one of the worst wildfire seasons in Latin America for two decades.
Drone footage captured on Thursday shows the drought-stricken San Roque Lake, where levels have reportedly dropped to their lowest in the last 12 years, limiting fresh water supply to nearby Cordoba, Argentina's second-largest city.
Local environmentalist Luis Rafael Volkmann attributes the crisis in the region to the 'consequence of climate change'.
"The constant fires in different points of the mountain range cause the destruction of the vegetal cover and the destruction of the soil," Volkmann explained.
"The mountains of Cordoba, without vegetation and without that soil cover, do not allow the water to infiltrate and be retained, and then it runs freely downhill," he continued.
Researchers have urged the public to drop their daily water usage by 30 percent, while authorities in Villa Carlos Paz have imposed fines on residents who don't comply with new regulations limiting consumption.
"Without water, there is no life," Volkmann added. "We slowly extract water that has accumulated for hundreds or thousands of years in the basin. In the subsoil, we extract it as if it were inexhaustible, and it is not.
This summer, Argentina was ravaged by widespread droughts, widely attributed to 'El Nino', a naturally occurring climate pattern that warms the ocean's surface and usually increases global temperatures for up to a year.