Specific conductance and major ion composition in United States lakes and their natural and human drivers

This dataset includes specific conductance and major ion data and their natural and human drivers for lakes across the conterminous US. The data were collected for and analyzed in the paper: Sun, X., Cheruvelil, K.S., Hanly, P.J., Webster, K.E., & Soranno, P.A. Interactions Between Human Activities and Natural Processes Shape Specific Conductance and Ion Composition of United States Lakes. Water Research. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.watres.2026.125486 The conductivity data all factors trans.csv dataset contains specific conductance (as a proxy for salinity) and natural and human factor data for 9,784 lakes. The ion cluster data all factors trans.csv dataset contains major ion concentrations (in ion equivalent concentration, ueq/L), the cluster and ion group each lake was assigned to, and natural and human factor data for 1,218 lakes. Detailed explanations of each variable and data sources can be found in the metadata file and the supplementary Table S1 of the manuscript. Some natural and human factors were natural log transformed, and information about the transformation applied can be found in the supplementary Table S1 of the manuscript. The process.R file contains R code used for filtering and pre-processing the SC and ion concentration data, and the analysis_code.R file contains R code applied to analyze the data. Please contact Xinyu Sun ([e-mail]; [e-mail]) for any questions and/or further clarification/explanation.