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High Mountain Asia Lake Water Level Dataset from CryoSat‑2 and ICESat‑2

High Mountain Asia (HMA) host one of the largest concentrations of lakes globally, which together with snow and ice reserves, serve as an essential water resource for the region. Due to the limited human disturbances these high-altitude lakes serve as sensitive indicators of climate change impacts. However, their vast number, remote location, and challenging mountainous terrain make in-situ measurements scarce. Satellite altimetry offers a unique opportunity to continuously monitor lake water level variation across HMA. Here we present a water level timeseries for 238 lakes (≥ 20 km2) across HMA derived from CryoSat-2 (2010-2023) and ICESat-2 (2018-2024). Water level timeseries from the two independent altimetry missions shows strong consistency with 80% of lakes exhibiting statistically significant agreement in their signals (p = 0.013). The dataset is structured as a single netCDF file with a two-dimensional matrix format, including water level measurements, associated uncertainties, mission identifiers, ice flags, and static lake attributions (location, area). The water level datasets presented enables long-term trend analysis, changes in lake water storage, response to wet-and-dry climate cycles. The dataset also provides essential variables to study relationships between lake ecosystems and changes in the water resources across HMA.

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Date ( Publication )
2026-06-16
Author
  DTU Space, Technical University of Denmark - Javed Hassan ( )
Author
  DTU Space, Technical University of Denmark - Karina Nielsen ( )
Author
  Department of Glaciology and Climate, Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland - William Colgan ( )
Author
  Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, Himalayan Cryosphere, Climate and Disaster Research Center (HiCCDRC), School of Science, Kathmandu University - Rijan Bhakta Kayastha
Author
  Climate Cubit - Mira Khadka
Author
  DTU Space, Technical University of Denmark - Shfaqat Abbas Khan
Purpose
To provide water level time series data for 238 lakes across High Mountain Asia (HMA) derived using satellite altimetry data from CryoSat‑2 (2010 – 2023) and ICESat‑2 (2018 – 2024)
Status
Completed
Maintenance and update frequency
As needed
( Theme )
  • lake level change
  • satellite altimetry
  • climate change
  • hydrology
  • cryosphere
Keywords ( Place )
  • High Mountain Asia
Use limitation
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
Access constraints
License
Use constraints
License
Metadata language
eng
Character set
UTF8
Topic category
  • Geoscientific information
N
S
E
W
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Reference system identifier
WGS 1984

Distributor

Distributor
  ICIMOD -
OnLine resource
Rising Lake Levels Across High Mountain Asia ( WWW:LINK-1.0-http--link )

Associated paper

Hierarchy level
Feature
File identifier
13351e7a-89ea-4b4e-a331-df092be8bc4d XML
Metadata language
eng
Character set
UTF8
Hierarchy level
Dataset
Date stamp
2026-06-18T14:28:02
Metadata standard name
North American Profile of ISO 19115:2003
Author
  DTU Space, Technical University of Denmark - Javed Hassan
 
 

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Keywords

climate change cryosphere hydrology lake level change satellite altimetry

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