Reservoirs and lakes

Lakes and reservoirs can be defined as a significant volume of water, which occupies a depression of the land and has no direct connection with a sea. They can intensify winter snowstorms, increase precipitation or/and surface temperature, generate night convection and intensive thunderstorms. Lakes and reservoirs can influence the atmosphere regionally and globally.

  • Lake mask map In the LISFLOOD model lake mask map represents the area covered by lakes and is used for computing evaporation from open water surfaces.
  • Lakes & reservoirs maps In the LISFLOOD model lakes and reservoirs maps represent only outflow location grid-cells (store lake/reservoir ID number in the morphological parameter look-up table) and are used for the lakes and reservoirs modelling.

Lake mask map

General map information and possible source data

Map name File name;type Units; range Description
Lake mask lakemask.nc;
Type: Float32
Units: -;
Range: 0 or 1
Map of the footprint of lakes
Source data Reference/preparation Temporal coverage Spatial information
Global Lakes and Wetlands Database (GLWD):
Large Lake Polygons (Level 1)
GLWD leve1 2004 Global, 1:1 to 1:3 million resolution
Global Lakes and Wetlands Database (GLWD):
Small Lake Polygons (Level 3)
GLWD leve1 2004 Global, 1:1 to 1:3 million resolution
Fraction of inland water It can be prepared by using
the methodology explained here
NA Global

Methodology

Fraction of inland water map is adjusted to the LISFLOOD model – all grid-cells fully covered with ocean water that are considered during computations are filled with inland water.
If a grid-cell has any fraction of inland water and is inside the GLWD Level 1 and GLWD level 2 lake shapefiles, it is marked as ‘1’ (fully covered), otherwise it is marked as ‘0’.

Results (examples)

Figure 53: Lakemask map at 1 arc min horizontal resolution for European domain (left) and at 3 arc min horizontal resolution for Global domain (right) with coloured areas showing land pixel.

Lakes and reservoirs maps

General map information and possible source data

Map name File name;type Units; range Description
Lakes lakes.nc;
Type: Float32
Units: -;
Range: integer ID number to identify each lake
Lake outflow location
(stores lake ID number in the morphological parameter look-up table)
Reservoirs res.nc;
Type: Float32
Units: -;
Range: integer ID number to identify each reservoir
Reservoir outflow location
(stores reservoir ID number in the morphological parameter look-up table)
Source data Reference/preparation Temporal coverage Spatial information
Lakes datase NA NA European/Global, ASCII table
Reservoirs dataset NA NA European/Global, ASCII table
Local Drain Direction (LDD) map It can be prepared by following the methodology explained here NA Global

Methodology

Any ASCII tables with lakes and reservoirs geographical location should be mapped on the local drain direction (ldd) map.