A lake data set for the Tibetan Plateau from the 1960s, 2005, and 2014

Abstract

Abstract Long-term datasets of number and size of lakes over the Tibetan Plateau (TP) are among the most critical components for better understanding the interactions among the cryosphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere at regional and global scales. Due to the harsh environment and the scarcity of data over the TP, data accumulation and sharing become more valuable for scientists worldwide to make new discoveries in this region. This paper, for the first time, presents a comprehensive and freely available data set of lakes’ status (name, location, shape, area, perimeter, etc.) over the TP region dating back to the 1960s, including three time series, i.e., the 1960s, 2005, and 2014, derived from ground survey (the 1960s) or high-spatial-resolution satellite images from the China-Brazil Earth Resources Satellite (CBERS) (2005) and China’s newly launched GaoFen-1 (GF-1, which means high-resolution images in Chinese) satellite (2014). The data set could provide scientists with useful information for revealing environmental changes and mechanisms over the TP region. Design Type(s) time series design • observation design • data integration objective Measurement Type(s) lake topography Technology Type(s) remote sensing Factor Type(s) Sample Characteristic(s) Tibetan Plateau • Qaidam Basin • Amu Darya • Brahmaputra River • River Ganges • Hexi District • Indus River • Mekong River • Salween River • Tarim Basin • Yangtze River • Yellow River • endorheic lake • exorheic lake Machine-accessible metadata file describing the reported data (ISA-Tab format)