About
-50ft (-15m) when empty
5ft (1.5m) every 3 years
13ft (4m) every decade
3,668 sq mi (9,500 sq km)
NA - the region is a desert, that experiences occaisional flooding
Lake Eyre, Australia typically is found as an inhospitably dry salt basin.
Located in the heart of Australia, it only floods once every couple of years.
It is believed that hundreds of thousands of years ago, the basin was a lush oasis - an anchor in the interior of the content for all wildlife.
While no longer native to Australia, this prehistoric paradise may likely have hosted incredible populations of flamingos until the climate shifted and they went extinct.
When the climate patterns shifted however, the interior became isolated from the coastal moisture, eventually aridifying into the condition we find it in today.
Every couple years, the region receives enough rainfall to create a temporary sea.
Every several cycles, El Niño affects the region's weather enough to generate a substantial sea 3 or 4 times per century.
While it rapidly evaporates, nature regenerates remarkably, illustrating the basin's latent potential to nurture an ecological dynamo
For over a hundred years, proposals have been made to import water from the ocean with the goal of permanently filling the basin.
With the dramatic evaporation rates in the region, the vision was to see the moisture fall as rain on the surrounding mountains creating rivers and an explosion of wildlife.
Given the Lake Eyre's elevation below sea level, the canals could conceivably transport the water through gravity alone.
No such proposal has gained traction to date, so the potential remains tantalizingly close, but untapped.
Imagine the transformative effect of replacing a desert with an ocean on the interior of Australia. Terraforming at a continental scale!
