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Reservoirs are sustainable only as long as they offer sufficient water storage space to achieve their design objectives. Life expectancy related to sedimentation is a measure of reservoir sustainability. We used data from the Army Corps of Engineers, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, and U.S. Geological Survey (Reservoir Sedimentation Survey Information System II (RESIS II)) to explore the sustainability of American reservoirs. Sustainability varied by region, with the longest life expectancies in New England and the Tennessee Valley and the shortest in the interior west. In the Missouri and Colorado River basins, sedimentation and rates of loss of reservoir storage capacity were highly variable in time and space. In the Missouri River Basin, the larger reservoirs had the longest life expectancies, with some exceeding 1000 years, while smaller reservoirs in the basin had the shortest life expectancies. In the Colorado River …