Lake Yuriria (Spanish ''Laguna de Yuriria'') is a

reservoir A reservoir (; from French ''réservoir'' ) is an enlarged lake behind a dam. Such a dam may be either artificial, built to store fresh water or it may be a natural formation. Reservoirs can be created in a number of ways, including contro ...

Guanajuato Guanajuato (), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Guanajuato ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Guanajuato), is one of the 32 states that make up the Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided into 46 municipalities and its capital city i ...

state of central

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

. The reservoir has existed since the 16th century, and is used for irrigation of the surrounding farms. The lake is an important habitat for waterbirds, and was declared a wetland of international importance.

Geography

Lake Yuriria is located in the basin of the

Lerma River The Lerma River ( es, Río Lerma) is Mexico's second longest river. It is a river in west-central Mexico that begins in Mexican Plateau at an altitude over above sea level, and ends where it empties into Lake Chapala, Mexico's largest lake, near ...

, in the southern portion of Guanajuato state. It lies west of the

, to which it is connected by a canal. The town of

Yuriria Yuriria, Guanajuato, Mexico,(), is one of 46 municipalities in the Mexican state of Guanajuato. Geography Yuriria is located in the "Bajío", or lowlands, of Guanajuato. It is bordered to the east by Salvatierra and Santiago Maravatío, to the ...

is on the south shore of the lake, and the lake is within Yuriria Municipality. The lake covers an area of 7200 ha, and is generally shallow, with a maximum depth of 2.6 m.Sigala, Itzel, et al. “Basic Limnology of 30 Continental Waterbodies of the Transmexican Volcanic Belt across Climatic and Environmental Gradients.” Boletín de La Sociedad Geológica Mexicana, vol. 69, no. 2, 2017, pp. 313–70. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/26461901. Accessed 26 Jul. 2022. The lake is linked by a canal to the

, which refills the lake during wet periods. Lake water is distributed to adjacent farms by irrigation channels during dry months. Flow to and from the Lerma is regulated by gates.Murphy, Michael E. (2020) ''Irrigation In The Bajio Region Of Colonial Mexico''. Routledge, 2020. ISBN 9780367161149

Lake Cuitzeo Lake Cuitzeo () is a lake in the central part of Mexico, in the state of Michoacán. It has an area of . The lake is astatic, meaning the volume and level of water in the lake fluctuates frequently. It is the second-largest freshwater lake in Mexic ...

lies to the north. Lake Cuitzeo is mostly a closed, or

endorheic basin An endorheic basin (; also spelled endoreic basin or endorreic basin) is a drainage basin that normally retains water and allows no outflow to other external bodies of water, such as rivers or oceans, but drainage converges instead into lakes ...

, but historically it overflowed into Lake Yuriria via an old channel. Lake Cuitzeo's water is

brackish Brackish water, sometimes termed brack water, is water occurring in a natural environment that has more salinity than freshwater, but not as much as seawater. It may result from mixing seawater (salt water) and fresh water together, as in estuari ...

and unfit for irrigation, and by the 19th century a levee was built south of Lake Cuitzeo to prevent overflows into Lake Yuriria.

History

The name is a shortened version ''Yuririapundaro'', which means "lake of blood" in the

Purépecha language Purépecha (also ''P'urhépecha'' , tsz, Phorhé or ''Phorhépecha''), often called Tarascan, which is a pejorative term coined by Spanish colonizers ( es, Tarasco), is a language isolate or small language family that is spoken by some 140,000 ...

. Prior to the Spanish conquest, the lake was part of the

Purépecha Empire The Purépecha Empire, also known by the term Iréchikwa, was a polity in pre-Columbian Mexico. Its territory roughly covered the geographic area of the present-day Mexican state of Michoacán, as well as parts of Guanajuato, Guerrero, and Jalisc ...

.“The Yuriria and Cuitzeo Monasteries.” Artes de México, no. 86/87, 1966, pp. 18–19. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/24312711. Accessed 25 Jul. 2022. The canal was constructed in 1548 at the direction of Friar Diego de Chávez, an

Augustinian Augustinian may refer to: *Augustinians, members of religious orders following the Rule of St Augustine *Augustinianism, the teachings of Augustine of Hippo and his intellectual heirs *Someone who follows Augustine of Hippo * Canons Regular of Sain ...

monk, and is among the first hydraulic engineering works in colonial America. Friar Diego de Chávez also commenced construction of the Augustinan monastery in the town of

, on the southern shore of the lake.

Flora and fauna

The lake is

eutrophic Eutrophication is the process by which an entire body of water, or parts of it, becomes progressively enriched with minerals and nutrients, particularly nitrogen and phosphorus. It has also been defined as "nutrient-induced increase in phytoplank ...

, with low visibility (.2 meters), and abundant aquatic vegetation. The lake is an important habitat for migratory birds. 142 bird species were recorded between 1981 and 1997, of which 44 are aquatic.Important Bird Areas factsheet: Laguna de Yuriria
BirdLife International (2022). Accessed 27 July 2022. Species include the

red-tailed hawk The red-tailed hawk (''Buteo jamaicensis'') is a bird of prey that breeds throughout most of North America, from the interior of Alaska and northern Canada to as far south as Panama and the West Indies. It is one of the most common members with ...

(''Buteo jamaicensis''),

peregrine falcon The peregrine falcon (''Falco peregrinus''), also known as the peregrine, and historically as the duck hawk in North America, is a Cosmopolitan distribution, cosmopolitan bird of prey (Bird of prey, raptor) in the family (biology), family Falco ...

(''Falco peregrinus''),

blue-winged teal The blue-winged teal (''Spatula discors'') is a species of bird in the duck, goose, and swan family Anatidae. One of the smaller members of the dabbling duck group, it occurs in North America, where it breeds from southern Alaska to Nova Scotia ...

(''Spatula discors''),

American wigeon The American wigeon (''Mareca americana''), also known as the baldpate, is a species of dabbling duck found in North America. Formerly assigned to ''Anas'', this species is classified with the other wigeons in the dabbling duck genus ''Mareca''. ...

(''Mareca americana''),

Mexican duck The Mexican duck (''Anas diazi'') is a species of dabbling duck that breeds in Mexico and the southwestern United States. Distribution and habitat Most of the population is resident, but some northern birds migrate south to Mexico in winter. Th ...

(''Anas diazi''),

American white pelican The American white pelican (''Pelecanus erythrorhynchos'') is a large aquatic soaring bird from the order Pelecaniformes. It breeds in interior North America, moving south and to the coasts, as far as Central America and South America, in winte ...

(''Pelecanus erythrorhynchos''),

Townsend's solitaire Townsend's solitaire (''Myadestes townsendi'') is a medium-sized thrush, the only solitaire native to America north of Mexico. Range and habitat This solitaire ranges from southern Alaska, British Columbia and Alberta to northern Zacatecas in Me ...

(''Myadestes townsendi''),

black-vented oriole The black-vented oriole (''Icterus wagleri'') is a species of bird in the family Icteridae. It is found in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, and the United States. Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical dry forest, ...

(''Icterus wagleri''),

hooded oriole The hooded oriole (''Icterus cucullatus'') is a medium-sized New World oriole. The male of this species ranges in color from a bright orange to a paler yellow, with a black back, face, tail and bib, with the wing containing two white bars. The fe ...

(''Icterus cucullatus''), and

black-polled yellowthroat The black-polled yellowthroat (''Geothlypis speciosa'') is a species of bird in the family Parulidae. Distribution It is endemic to central Mexico and the southwestern Mexican Plateau, in Guanajuato, Michoacán, and México State. Its natura ...

(''Geothlypis speciosa''). It is designated an

Important Bird Area An Important Bird and Biodiversity Area (IBA) is an area identified using an internationally agreed set of criteria as being globally important for the conservation of bird populations. IBA was developed and sites are identified by BirdLife Int ...

. The land surrounding the lake is in the

Bajío dry forests The Bajío dry forests is a tropical dry broadleaf forest ecoregion in western−central Mexico. Geography The Bajío dry forests lie in the southwestern portion of the Mexican Plateau. They are bounded on the southeast, south, and southwest by ...

ecoregion."Bajio dry forests"
DOPA Explorer. Accessed 26 July 2022.

Conservation

In 2004 it was designated a wetland of international importance under the

Ramsar convention The Ramsar Convention on Wetlands of International Importance Especially as Waterfowl Habitat is an international treaty for the conservation and sustainable use of Ramsar sites (wetlands). It is also known as the Convention on Wetlands. It i ...

. The Ramsar site covers 15,020 ha, and includes the entire lake and the lands around the shore.

References

{{commons cat Landforms of Guanajuato Ramsar sites in Mexico Protected areas of Guanajuato

Important Bird Areas of Mexico Lerma River Yuriria