A data set of inland lake catchment boundaries for the Qiangtang Plateau.
Denghua Yan, Meng Li, Wuxia Bi, Baisha Weng, Tianling Qin, Jianwei Wang, Pierre Do
Author Information
Denghua Yan: State Key Laboratory of Simulation and Regulation of Water Cycle in River Basin, China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research (IWHR), Beijing, 100038, China.
Meng Li: State Key Laboratory of Simulation and Regulation of Water Cycle in River Basin, China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research (IWHR), Beijing, 100038, China.
Wuxia Bi: State Key Laboratory of Simulation and Regulation of Water Cycle in River Basin, China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research (IWHR), Beijing, 100038, China. ORCID
Baisha Weng: State Key Laboratory of Simulation and Regulation of Water Cycle in River Basin, China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research (IWHR), Beijing, 100038, China. wengbs@iwhr.com.
Tianling Qin: State Key Laboratory of Simulation and Regulation of Water Cycle in River Basin, China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research (IWHR), Beijing, 100038, China.
Jianwei Wang: State Key Laboratory of Simulation and Regulation of Water Cycle in River Basin, China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research (IWHR), Beijing, 100038, China.
Pierre Do: Institute of Water Resources and Hydrology Department of Hydraulic Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China.
A catchment is the basic unit for studying hydrologic cycle processes and associated climate change impacts. Accurate catchment delineation is essential in the field of hydrology, environment, and meteorology. Traditionally, catchment delineation is most easily carried out where the outflow area can be easily determined because of a well-defined outlet. The obstacle of the current study is to determine accurately the catchment boundary of lakes that are internally draining and, therefore, lack a well-defined outflow (i.e. inland lakes). This study describes a catchment delineation method which demarcated all the catchments of the lakes in the Qiangtang Plateau, especially for the inland lakes and their closed catchments. Lake catchment boundaries determined for the Qiangtang Plateau provide a significant advancement for water resource and climate change evaluation and agriculture production in the area.
