Lake Water Level observations for 1036 lakes in Wisconsin, 1900 - 2015

This dataset contains the daily lake level observations and other lake attributes in Wisconsin. It covers 1036 lakes including 461 seepage lakes and 575 drainage lakes. It has about 342,300 observations. The time span of this dataset is between January 1st, 1900 and December 31st, 2015. The data sources include USGS, Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, North Temperate Lakes-Long Term Ecological Research (NTL-LTER), North Lakeland Discovery Center, Waushara County, and City of Shell. Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources has two data sources, the historical lake levels recorded in paper files and the data from a recently-initiated citizen monitoring program. The latter are stored in Wisconsin Surface Water Integrated Monitoring System (SWIMS). The data compilation consists of four major steps. First, the data were retrieved from different data sources. Then the data from different sources but for the same lakes were tied together by the datum information. Third, three rounds of quality assurance and quality control (QAQC) were conducted. Finally, more attributes such as lake area, lake depth, and lake type were added to the lakes. The project that compiles the data is funded by Wisconsin Groundwater Joint Solicitation.