Abstract
Salinization of freshwater resources is a growing water quality challenge, which may negatively impact both sectoral water-use and food security, as well as biodiversity and ecosystem services. Although monitoring of salinity is relatively common compared to many other water quality parameters, no compilation and harmonisation of available datasets for both surface and groundwater components have been made yet at the global scale. Here, we present a new global salinity database, compiled from electrical conductivity (EC) monitoring data of both surface water (rivers, lakes/reservoirs) and groundwater locations over the period 1980–2019. The data were assembled from a range of sources, including local to global salinity databases, governmental organizations, river basin management commissions and water development boards. Our resulting database comprises more than 16.3 million measurements from 45,103 surface water locations and 208,550 groundwater locations around the world. This database could provide new opportunities for meta-analyses of salinity levels of water resources, as well as for addressing data and model-driven questions related to historic and future salinization patterns and impacts.
Highlights
Background & SummaryFreshwater salinization is a growing water quality challenge, affecting both surface and groundwater resources[1,2]
Improving water quality is a central part of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and data collection and sharing have been communicated as important steps for reaching associated water quality targets[9,10]
The number of studies sharing salinity datasets are increasing[15,16,17,18], few assessments extend to the global scale, and even less target both the surface and groundwater systems
Summary
Freshwater salinization is a growing water quality challenge, affecting both surface and groundwater resources[1,2]. Salinity data is often scattered and non-harmonized, both in terms of reported parameters, units, and spatio-temporal resolution This complicates comparison of information across scales. Groundwater locations were on average sampled four times, while river, respectively, lake/reservoirs on average contain 321 and 417 samples per station This database provides a starting point for global, open-source salinity observational data in surface and groundwater systems and can assist data and model-driven studies at cross-regional to global scales. The database can for example be utilized for assessing (i) spatial and temporal patterns of freshwater salinization, (ii) its impact for ecosystem health and sectoral water use, (iii) estimations of drivers of freshwater salinization across scales, and for (iv) calibration and validation of surface and groundwater salinity models
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