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Understanding controls on primary productivity is essential for describing ecosystems and their responses to environmental change. Lake primary production is strongly controlled by inputs of nutrients and colored dissolved organic matter. While past studies have developed mathematical models of this nutrient-color paradigm, broad empirical tests of these models are scarce. We compiled data from 58 diverse and globally distributed and mostly temperate lakes to test such a model and improve understanding and prediction of the controls on lake primary production. These lakes varied widely in size (0.02-2300 km2), pelagic gross primary production (20-8000 mg C m-2 d-1), and other characteristics. The data package includes high-frequency dissolved oxygen, water temperature, wind speed, and solar radiation data as well as daily estimates of GPP and ER derived from those data. In addition, the data package includes median in-lake and stream concentrations of dissolved organic carbon and total phosphorus for a subset of 18 of those lakes.
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Dissolved oxygen, temperature, chlorophyll-a, total phosphorus, total nitrogen, and dissolved organic carbon at multiple depths in 822 lakes from 1921-2022
Rapid changes in climate and land use are having substantial and interacting impacts on lake water quality around the world. Here, we synthesized time-series data for dissolved oxygen, temperature, chlorophyll-a, total phosphorus, total nitrogen, and dissolved organic carbon at multiple depths in 822 lakes to facilitate analyses of these changes. The dataset extends from 1921–2022, with a median data duration of 29 years (range 5-102) and a median of 5 unique sampling dates per year at each lake. Lakes in the dataset have a median depth of 12.5 m (range 1.5–480 m), median surface area of 85.4 ha (range: 0.5–237000 ha) and median elevation of 264 m (range: -215–2804). The lakes are located in 18 countries across 5 continents, with latitudes ranging from -42.6 to 68.3. To facilitate interoperability with other large-scale datasets, each lake is linked to a unique hydroLAKES lake ID when possible (n = 683).
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- Award ID(s):
- 2025982
- PAR ID:
- 10493449
- Author(s) / Creator(s):
- ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; more »
- Publisher / Repository:
- Environmental Data Initiative
- Date Published:
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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