According to a new report, the West Asia region, which is already a dry land, has experienced significant water losses in recent times.

NASA said that water reserves in various countries along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, including Turkey, Syria, Iran and Iraq have disappeared. The data compiled through Nasa's Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment satellites showed that the four countries lost 144 cubic kilometers of water between the years, 2003 and 2010.

The amount of water lost in Turkey, Syria, Iran and Iraq during the time period is equivalent to all the water in the Dead Sea, according to the scientists. They said that the pace of disappearance of water is second only to that in India. Scientists at the University of California's Center for Hydrologic Modeling said that rate of evaporation of water is among the largest for fresh water sources on the continent.

Jay Famiglietti at the centre said, "We have found that the Tigris-Euphrates-Western Iran region lost roughly 144 cubic kilometers of freshwater between 2003 and 2009 and that roughly 90 cubic kilometres of this loss was due to groundwater depletion."

The study was published Friday in the journal Water Resources Research.