An uncertainty-focused database approach to extract spatiotemporal trends from qualitative and discontinuous lake-status histories

General description: A relational database on late-Quaternary lake status of 67 sites in eastern and southern Africa, and related documentation and analytical methodology.

Associated publication: This material is a supplement to De Cort, G., Chevalier, M., Burrough, S.L., Chen, C.Y., Harrison, S.P. 2021. An uncertainty-focused database approach to extract spatiotemporal trends from qualitative and discontinuous lake-status histories. Quaternary Science Reviews. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2021.106870.

Suggested citation: Please reference the associated publication above when using any data or methodology included here.

Contact: Gijs De Cort (gijs.decort@ugent.be) or Manuel Chevalier (manuel.chevalier@unil.ch).

Contents: The following material is included.

• Database ('ESA database - SQLite.zip' and 'ESA database - spreadsheets.zip')

Data on site characteristics, chronology and lake-status history was assembled into 9 tables, which are combined into a relational SQLite database

Lakes: This table contains a unique site identifier, site name, coordinates and basic information on present hydrology and morphometry.
Contributors: This table includes the name and ORCID of the researcher who contributed the site history to the database, and the date (month/year) when the data were included in the database.
Alternative Names: This table links the site identifier with alternative site names used in the literature.
Refs: This table contains all the references used to compile the database.
Dating: This table contains the original individual dates as well as the outcome of their reanalysis as part of the newly generated chronologies.
Coding Basis: This table contains the site-specific definitions of all status classes.
Coding Source: This table lists which lake-status indicators were available in the consulted literature, and which of these were used in the consensus lake-status reconstruction.
Lake Size: This table provides information on absolute water depth or lake-level elevation as recorded by geomorphological features.
Coding: This table contains the lake-status histories. These consist of sequences of episodes each defined by a start time, end time, relative lake status and associated uncertainties.

A number of additional tables is used to store lists of accepted values for specific fields or to link the different data tables together. 

• Supplementary information on database tables ('Supplementary information on database tables.pdf') 

Description and constraints of all database fields.

• Documentation ('ESA database - documentation.zip')

These files contain documentation for each of the 67 lake sites included in the database. This includes relevant background information of the site, presentation of original literature from which lake-status information was sourced, and discussion of consensus lake-status history.

• Catchment shapefiles ('ESA database - catchment shapefiles.zip')

Catchment shapefiles of the 67 included lake sites were extracted from the HydroSHEDS database (Lehner et al., 2008; https://doi.org/10.1029/2008EO100001) or, for the smallest drainage basins, by manual delineation using Google satellite imagery and Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) Global Digital Elevation Model (GDEM) v2 data (ASTER GDEM is a product of METI and NASA).

• R code ('R code for MC-RSEOF analysis.txt')

R code for iterative Monte-Carlo sampling and Recursively-Subtracted Empirical Orthogonal Function analysis of the database, as described in the associated publication.