Lakes and reservoirs are essential elements of the hydrological and biochemical cycles, considered sentinels of global climate change. However, comprehensive quantifications of their water storage changes (V) at a large spatiotemporal scale are still rare. Here, we integrated a global surface water dataset and SRTM digital elevation models, both available from Google Earth Engine platform at a spatial resolution of 30 m, to evaluate V for a total of 760 lakes and reservoirs across China at an annual timescale since 1984. The results indicated that (1) the aggregated water storage went through a slight increase of 41.5 Gt (1.7 Gt/yr) during 1985-2005, a significant decrease of 100 Gt (-20.6 Gt/yr) during 2005-2009, and then increased by 136.3 Gt (21.3 Gt/yr) during 2009-2015. (2) The increasing trend was largely attributed to lakes and reservoirs in the Tibetan Plateau Lake Zone, and the decreasing trend was mainly due to the North and Northwest Lake Zone, with little variations observed for the Northeast and Southwest Lake Zones. (3) Qinghai lake was associated with the largest increase (18.3 Gt) and Poyang lake presented the largest decline (-9.2 Gt). The results can help advance our understanding of the impact of climate change and improve future projection.
1.Tsinghua Univ, Dept Hydraul Engn, State Key Lab Hydrosci & Engn, Beijing 100084, Peoples R China 2.Peking Univ, Inst Remote Sensing & Geog Informat Syst, Beijing 100871, Peoples R China 3.Univ Oklahoma, Dept Civil Engn & Environm Sci, Norman, OK 73019 USA 4.China Inst Water Resources & Hydropower Res, State Key Lab Simulat & Regulat Water Cycle River, Beijing 100038, Peoples R China
Recommended Citation:
Fang, Yu,Li, Huan,Wan, Wei,et al. Assessment of Water Storage Change in China's Lakes and Reservoirs over the Last Three Decades[J]. REMOTE SENSING,2019-01-01,11(12)