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Lake trophic state is a key ecosystem property that integrates a lake’s physical, chemical, and biological processes. Despite the importance of trophic state as a gauge of lake water quality, standardized and machine-readable observations are uncommon. Remote sensing presents an opportunity to detect and analyze lake trophic state with reproducible, robust methods across time and space. We used Landsat surface reflectance data to create the first compendium of annual lake trophic state for 55,662 lakes of at least 10 ha in area throughout the contiguous United States from 1984 through 2020. The dataset was constructed with FAIR data principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reproducible) in mind, where data are publicly available, relational keys from parent datasets are retained, and all data wrangling and modeling routines are scripted for future reuse. Together, this resource offers critical data to address basic and applied research questions about lake water quality at a suite of spatial and temporal scales.

 

Abstract Global change may contribute to ecological changes in high-elevation lakes and reservoirs, but a lack of data makes it difficult to evaluate spatiotemporal patterns. Remote sensing imagery can provide more complete records to evaluate whether consistent changes across a broad geographic region are occurring. We used Landsat surface reflectance data to evaluate spatial patterns of contemporary lake color (2010–2020) in 940 lakes in the U.S. Rocky Mountains, a historically understudied area for lake water quality. Intuitively, we found that most of the lakes in the region are blue (66%) and were found in steep-sided watersheds (>22.5°) or alternatively were relatively deep (>4.5 m) with mean annual air temperature (MAAT) <4.5°C. Most green/brown lakes were found in relatively shallow sloped watersheds with MAAT ⩾4.5°C. We extended the analysis of contemporary lake color to evaluate changes in color from 1984 to 2020 for a subset of lakes with the most complete time series ( n = 527). We found limited evidence of lakes shifting from blue to green states, but rather, 55% of the lakes had no trend in lake color. Surprisingly, where lake color was changing, 32% of lakes were trending toward bluer wavelengths, and only 13% shifted toward greener wavelengths. Lakes and reservoirs with the most substantial shifts toward blue wavelengths tended to be in urbanized, human population centers at relatively lower elevations. In contrast, lakes that shifted to greener wavelengths did not relate clearly to any lake or landscape features that we evaluated, though declining winter precipitation and warming summer and fall temperatures may play a role in some systems. Collectively, these results suggest that the interactions between local landscape factors and broader climatic changes can result in heterogeneous, context-dependent changes in lake color. 

Artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM) is the largest global source of anthropogenic mercury emissions. However, little is known about how effectively mercury released from ASGM is converted into the bioavailable form of methylmercury in ASGM-altered landscapes. Through examination of ASGM-impacted river basins in Peru, we show that lake area in heavily mined watersheds has increased by 670% between 1985 and 2018 and that lakes in this area convert mercury into methylmercury at net rates five to seven times greater than rivers. These results suggest that synergistic increases in lake area and mercury loading associated with ASGM are substantially increasing exposure risk for people and wildlife. Similarly, marked increases in lake area in other ASGM hot spots suggest that “hydroscape” (hydrological landscape) alteration is an important and previously unrecognized component of mercury risk from ASGM. 

Rivers are among the most imperiled ecosystems globally, yet we do not have broad‐scale understanding of their changing ecology because most are rarely sampled. Water color, as perceived by the human eye, is an integrative measure of water quality directly observed by satellites. We examined patterns in river color between 1984 and 2018 by building a remote sensing database of surface reflectance, RiverSR, extracted from 234,727 Landsat images covering 108,000 kilometers of rivers > 60 m wide in the contiguous USA. We found 1) broad regional patterns in river color, with 56% of observations dominantly yellow and 38% dominantly green; 2) river color has three distinct seasonal patterns that were synchronous with flow regimes; 3) one third of rivers had significant color shifts over the last 35 years. RiverSR provides the first map of river color and new insights into macrosystems ecology of rivers.