Abstract
Lake water storage is essential information for lake research. Previous studies usually used bathymetric data to acquire underwater topography by interpolation method, and to therefore estimate water storage. However, due to the large area of Tibetan Plateau (TP) lakes, the method of bathymetry was challenging to cover the whole region of one lake, and the accuracy of the underwater topography, in which no bathymetric data covered, was low, which resulted in a comparatively large error of lake water storage estimation and its change. In this study, we used Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) and in situ bathymetric data to establish the underwater topography of Hohxil Lake (HL) and Lexiewudan Lake (LL) in the Hohxil Region of North TP and estimate and analyzed the changes of lake level and water storage. The results showed HL and LL’s water storage was 5.12 km3 and 5.31 km3 in 2019, respectively, and their level increased by 0.5 m/y and 0.57 m/y during 2003−2018, respectively. They were consistent with those (0.5 m/y and 0.5 m/y) from altimetry data, and they were much more accurate than those results (0.077 m/y and 0.156 m/y) from bathymetric data. These findings indicated that this method could improve the accuracy of lake water storage and change estimation. We estimated water storage of two lakes by combining with multitemporal Landsat images, which had doubled since 1976. Our results suggested that the increasing precipitation may dominate the lake expansion by comparing with the change of temperature and precipitation and the increasing glacial meltwater contributed approximately 4.8% and 10.7% to lake expansion of HL and LL during 2000–2019 based on the glacier mass balance data, respectively.
Highlights
Introduction nal affiliationsThe Tibetan Plateau (TP) is considered as “Water tower of Asia” and “Third Pole”with a large number of lakes, glaciers, and permafrost
~1976 to 50,000 ± 791.4 km2 in 2018 [8], and lake water storage has increased by 140.8 km3 during 1990−2013 for those lakes with an area greater than 10 km2 by combining Landsat images and Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) Digital Elevation Model (DEM) [1]
The results from method 2 were consistent with that from Zhang et al [18], indicating that the method 2 was better suitable to estimate water storage and change than method 1. These results indicated that lake depth distribution based on in situ underwater topography had a large error due to the insufficiency of bathymetric data around the lake shoreline, especially for the flooded area since 2000
Summary
With a large number of lakes, glaciers, and permafrost. Lakes are very sensitive to climate change. Lake area of the TP has increased from 40,000 ± 766.5 km in the. ~1976 to 50,000 ± 791.4 km in 2018 [8], and lake water storage has increased by 140.8 km during 1990−2013 for those lakes with an area greater than 10 km by combining Landsat images and Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) Digital Elevation Model (DEM) [1]. There is a large difference in climatic and hydrological conditions on the TP, and maybe there is a sizeable spatial difference causing lake change in different regions. Cause analysis of lake change has evolved from qualitative to quantitative research with the developing
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