Lake Water Levels and Associated Hydrologic Characteristics in the Conterminous U.S.

Fergus, C. Emi; Brooks, J. Renée; Kaufmann, Philip R.; Herlihy, Alan T.; Pollard, Amina I.; Weber, Matt; Paulsen, Steven G.

doi:10.1111/1752-1688.12817

Cited by 15 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 83 publications

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“…The approach used to measure and describe various dimensions of littoral and riparian physical habitat is described in [43][44][45][46]. These measurements result in indicators of lake habitat complexity, shallow water habitat alteration, riparian vegetation cover, lakeshore disturbance, and lake drawdown exposure in the littoral zone [30,45,46]. The shallow water habitat alteration indicator is based on visual estimates of the areal cover of several types of natural cover (e.g., snags, macrophytes, overhanging vegetation) observed in the littoral zone around each lake.…”

Section: Indicator Development and Evaluationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Jewels across the Landscape: Monitoring and Assessing the Quality of Lakes and Reservoirs in the United States

Peck¹,

Paulsen²,

Kaufmann³

et al. 2020

Water Quality - Science, Assessments and Policy

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An early naturalist described lakes as "jewels" across the landscape and indeed they were…at the end of the nineteenth century. As we settled the country and began to utilize the lake resource for our needs, things changed. Additionally, our needs for water brought about the construction of impoundments from ice ponds to small stock ponds up to mainstem impoundments along our major rivers. The lake resource in the United States now includes natural lakes in our northern tier of states, unique physiographic regions such as Florida and the Sand Hills of Nebraska, and the mountainous regions, and impoundments scattered across the entire landscape. In this chapter, we will describe efforts by an unique partnership between the individual states and tribal nations of the USA and the US Environmental Protection Agency to monitor and assess these systems. These efforts go beyond single water quality (chemistry) issues and include assessments targeting the goal of the Clean Water Act, namely, restoring, maintaining, and protecting the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the nation's lakes and reservoirs.

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Section: Indicator Development and Evaluationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Jewels across the Landscape: Monitoring and Assessing the Quality of Lakes and Reservoirs in the United States

Peck¹,

Paulsen²,

Kaufmann³

et al. 2020

Water Quality - Science, Assessments and Policy

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“…The goals of land and water management practices are strongly affected by underlying regional geoclimatic variation that influences spatial and seasonal patterns of water abundance, as illustrated by the distribution and density of dams across the landscape (Smith et al 2002; Doubek and Carey 2017; Fergus et al 2020). We found that the magnitude and direction of anthropogenic effects on lake hydrology varied across CONUS ecoregions particularly in the West and Midwest ecoregions.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Lakes with Evap : Inflow = 0 have all water entering the lake leaving as outflow, lakes with Evap : Inflow = 1 have all inflowing water lost to evaporation (100%), and lakes with Evap : Inflow > 1 are desiccating lakes with evaporation exceeding inflow. Details on lake water isotope collection, laboratory measurements, and Evap : Inflow estimation steps can be found in Brooks et al (2014) and the NLA 2012 Evap : Inflow estimates in Fergus et al (2020).…”

Section: Nla Surveysmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The NLA collects information on lake water‐level decline and evaporation‐to‐inflow ratio (Evap : Inflow), an estimate of the proportion of inflowing water that leaves the lake through evaporation. These variables have been used to assess lake hydrologic condition (Brooks et al 2014; Kaufmann et al 2014a; Fergus et al 2020) and are associated with multiple ecosystem properties (e.g., nearshore habitat condition; Carmignani and Roy 2017) and processes (e.g., nutrient and carbon cycling; Jones et al 2018). We modeled variation in lake hydrologic variables using structural equation models because they provide a scientific framework to evaluate complex multivariate theoretical relationships with empirical data (Grace et al 2010).…”

Section: Figmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Natural and anthropogenic controls on lake water‐level decline and evaporation‐to‐inflow ratio in the conterminous United States

Fergus

Brooks

Kaufmann

et al. 2022

Limnology & Oceanography

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Lake water levels are integral to lake function, but hydrologic changes from land and water management may alter lake fluctuations beyond natural ranges. We constructed a conceptual model of multifaceted drivers of lake water levels and evaporation-to-inflow ratio (Evap : Inflow). Using a structural equation modeling framework, we tested our model on (1) a national subset of lakes in the conterminous United States with minimal water management to describe natural drivers of lake hydrology and (2) five ecoregional subsets of lakes to explore regional variation in water management effects. Our model fits the national and ecoregional datasets and explained up to 47% of variation in Evap : Inflow, 38% of vertical water level decline, and 79% of horizontal water level decline (littoral exposure). For lakes with minimal water management, Evap : Inflow was related to lake depth (β = À0.31) and surface inflow (β = À0.44); vertical decline was related to annual climate (e.g., precipitation β = À0.18) and water management (β = À0.21); and horizontal decline was largely related to vertical decline (β = 0.73) and lake morphometry (e.g., depth β = À0.18). Anthropogenic effects varied by ecoregion and likely reflect differences in regional water management and climate. In the West, water management indicators were related to greater vertical decline (β = 0.38), whereas in the Midwest, these indicators were related to more stable and full lake levels (β = À0.22) even during drought conditions. National analyses show how human water use interacts with regional climate resulting in contrasting impacts to lake hydrologic variation in the United States.

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“…Existing studies show that the operation of engineered control structures has a signi cant effect on LWS dynamics by regulating lake out ows and dampening water level variability (Gibson et al 2006b;Yin et al 2013;Getirana et al 2020). The water balance in regulated lakes is also subject to other human-induced disturbances (e.g., within-lake ecological restoration, inter-basin water transfer, irrigation and other withdrawals), which complicate the operational schemes for lake regulation and alter the variations in LWS (Veijalainen et al 2010;Fergus et al 2019;Getirana et al 2020). The complicated hydrological behavior of regulated lakes brings challenges to understanding LWS dynamics and their response to the changing environment.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Estimation and attribution of water storage changes in regulated lakes based on Budyko's supply–demand framework

Zhou

Xiong

Chen

et al. 2022

Preprint

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Understanding changes in lake water storage (LWS) and its attribution to climate change and human activities is essential for adaptive management of water resources in regulated lakes. Although altimetric measurements, whether ground- or satellite-based, can reproduce LWS dynamics, they do not provide sufficient information on why LWS is changing. Neither the water balance method nor detailed hydrological modeling can capture exactly LWS change in most regulated lakes largely because of the scarcity of water output observations. Here, a simple water balance model, following Budyko’s supply–demand framework, was proposed to estimate LWS change in regulated lakes without the need for water output information. The elasticity of LWS was theoretically derived from the Budyko-based model to attribute LWS change to its main driving factors. The annual LWS observed during 1964–2019 under three different regulation plans in Lake Dianchi, which is a typical regulated lake located in southwest China, was used to calibrate and test the proposed model. Comparison between the estimated results and observed data indicated that the model accurately captured the variations of annual LWS in Lake Dianchi with a relative root mean square error of 4.08%, and mean absolute percentage error of 2.88%. The attribution results suggested that lake regulation strategies were the primary cause of LWS change in Lake Dianchi, while water transfer had a limited contribution. This study suggests that complex hydrological behavior in regulated lakes can be explored using Budyko's supply–demand framework with a low requirement for data. This can provide effective guidance to lake managers and policymakers for adaptive management of water resources in regulated lakes.

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Lake Water Levels and Associated Hydrologic Characteristics in the Conterminous U.S.

Cited by 15 publications

References 83 publications

Jewels across the Landscape: Monitoring and Assessing the Quality of Lakes and Reservoirs in the United States

Jewels across the Landscape: Monitoring and Assessing the Quality of Lakes and Reservoirs in the United States

Natural and anthropogenic controls on lake water‐level decline and evaporation‐to‐inflow ratio in the conterminous United States

Estimation and attribution of water storage changes in regulated lakes based on Budyko's supply–demand framework

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