Global database of lake water storage (GLWS) v1.1

Overview: The global database of lake water storage (GLWS) v1.1 dataset contains time-varying lake areas, water levels, and storages for 1,972 Earth’s large water bodies spanning 1992 to 2020 at a near monthly frequency. These water bodies represent 95% of the total global lake volume. The method is described in detail in Yao et al., Science (2023), but a quick overview is provided here.
1. We used a total of 248,649 satellite imagery, including both good and partially contaminated imagery, to map time-varying water areas following Yao et al. (2019).
2. We depended on elevation measurements from nine satellite altimeters to estimate water levels.
3. We combined near-monthly water areas with water levels to estimate lake volume changes over the period 1992-2020.
4. We accounted for sedimentation-induced storage losses in reservoirs filled prior to our study period (1992-2020) using sedimentation surveys and statistical methods.
5. We validated our lake water storage estimates against 26,052 monthly storage anomalies from in-situ gauging stations.
6. We used an ensemble of datasets and models to determine the drivers for natural lakes experiencing water losses or gains.
This dataset includes:
1. Global database of lake water storage GLWS time series v1.1: time-varying lake volume variables including area, level, and storage.
2. Global database of lake water storage GLWS shapefile v1.1: geographical locations of studied lakes, lake water storage trends and dominant drivers, and other information about lakes.
3. GLWS lake coordinates v1.1.csv: coordinates of studied lakes in a cvs format.
4. Validation_monthlystorageanamolies_against_insitu.csv: validation on estimated monthly storage anomalies against in-situ measurements.
5. Water masks: water masks for deriving water levels from ICESat and ICESat-2 satellites.