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Water reservoirs have been used to mitigate seasonal water shortages since the dawn of civilization. Present day use of water reservoirs continues to expand to meet the increasing demand for irrigation water and to mitigate effects of climate change and droughts. Losses to evaporation are an important challenge to water storage efficiency in arid regions. We study the use and efficiency of self-assembling floating covers as a simple and scalable solution to evaporation suppression. We report laboratory-scale studies of evaporation suppression using different cover types under various external conditions that jointly affect surface flux partitioning. Experiments using floating spheres and disks of different colors, sizes, and materials were conducted for a range of external conditions (radiation, wind, and wind + radiation) over a 1.44 m(2) water basin placed in a wind tunnel. Considering maximum cover density using spherical and disk-shaped elements (91% surface cover), the evaporation was suppressed by 80% (for disks) and 70% (for spheres) relative to uncovered water surfaces in agreement with physically based model estimates. Surprisingly, evaporation suppression using black and white floating covers was similar despite significantly different surface energy partitioning pathways. The observed similarity was attributed to thermal decoupling between the top of cover elements and water surfaces. The study shows a high and nearly constant evaporation suppression efficiency of floating covers for a range of external conditions supporting the potential of such simple and scalable solution of evaporation suppression for regions with limited infrastructure or alternative water solutions.