Ice cover thickness formulas for selected flow-through lakes of the upper Łeba River (Kashubian Lakeland, northern Poland) and an overview of GIS methods, models for determining the thickness of ice cover on the selected examples

Abstract

The lakes selected for the analysis are situated in the Kashubian Lakeland which is a proper research area as there is a benchmark lake with a long data series within the region. This lake is located in the central part of the lakeland, in the upper Radunia water catchment area, while the lakes not being hydrometrically supervised constitute part of the upper Łeba water catchment area. The main objective of this study is to determine the relationship between ice cover thickness on the flow-through lake undergoing constant hydrometric supervision and some selected flow-through lakes not being monitored. The following lakes were selected for the study: Lake Raduńskie Górne (the benchmark lake) and four hydrometrically unmonitored lakes: Długie, Wielkie, Reskowskie and Łapalickie. The fieldwork research was done in the period of 2003–2008. Moreover, in order to evaluate the data calculated with the use of empirical formulas, additional fieldwork research was carried out in 2016. The analysis made it possible to develop formulas that allowed the thickness of the ice covering the selected flow-through lakes of the upper Łeba water catchment area to be assessed with decent accuracy.

Formulas for calculating ice cover thickness on selected spring lakes on the upper Radunia (Kashubian Lakeland, northern Poland)

“…As Choiński et al (2015) have shown, a weaker strength of connection, except a local temperature variation, might be responsible for the individual morphometric features (lake volume and depth) of individual lakes. The results were even better for the models concerning the selected lakes of the upper Łeba River (Barańczuk 2019). In this case, the strength of relationship varied from good to very good with R 2 = 0.881 for Lake Łapalickie and 0.929 for Lake Reskowskie.…”

“…Such studies usually involve analysing ice cover with the use of satellite images or remote video monitoring data (Murfitt and Duguay 2020;Prabha et al 2020) and then ice models are created using such indirectly collected data sets (Tom et al 2020). There are only a few publications on monitoring lakes that are under hydrological control with the use of benchmark lakes (Barańczuk and Barańczuk 2018;Barańczuk 2019).…”

“…Ice phenomena, understood as the emergence of ice particles both on and beneath the surface of water after a prolonged period of belowfreezing temperatures, are one of the key indicators of annual fluctuations of energy conditions characterising lakes located within the temperate climate zone (Choiński 1995;Skowron 2011;Barańczuk and Borowiak 2005). Ice cover is the most frequently analysed parameter related to ice phenomena re-search conducted in the Kashubian Lakeland in the second decade of the 21st century (Barańczuk et al 2017;Barańczuk 2018;Barańczuk and Barańczuk 2018;Barańczuk 2019;Barańczuk and Barańczuk 2019). Usually, only lakes under hydrometric supervision are analysed (Skowron 2011, Barańczuk et al 2017Barańczuk 2018;Barańczuk and Barańczuk 2019).…”

“…In fact, the course of ice phenomena is not sufficiently recognised within some specific catchment areas. In order to analyse and monitor the current course of ice phenomena in such areas, satellite images and calculations using empirical formulas are used (Barańczuk and Borowiak 2005;Barańczuk 2015; Barańczuk and Barańczuk 2018;Barańczuk 2019).…”

The ice regime of Lake Ostrzyckie (Kashubian Lakeland, northern Poland)

“…The latest literature on the Kashubian Lakeland addresses the issue of modelling ice cover emerging on lakes situated in this region (Barańczuk 2018;Barańczuk and Barańczuk 2018;Barańczuk 2019). However, there is only one detailed publication on the ice regime of Lake Raduńskie Górne (Barańczuk et al 2017) covering such a long data series, and there are no publications addressing other lakes of this district.…”