资源环境科技发展态势分析平台

Lake water storage changes are important factors that influence the climate, hydrological cycle, and environments. However, long-term estimation of global lake storage changes is challenging because historical in-situ hydrological observations worldwide are rarely available. Benefiting from the laser altimeter ICESat and ICESat-2, we comprehensively assessed water level and volume changes in global natural lakes larger than 10 km² during 2003-2020. The 6567 lakes observable by ICESat/ICESat-2, which account for ∼94% of the total global lake volume, showed a total water storage increase of 10.88±16.45 Gt/yr during 2003-2020, and the estimate reaches 16.12±20.41 Gt/yr when also taking account of the remaining unobserved lakes. Despite water gains in most natural lakes, large lakes under dry and high water-stress conditions experienced dramatic water loss in general. Presumably, these drying lakes may continue to shrink with a warming climate and continuously increasing water demands in the future without further action.