Diversity II water quality parameters for 300 lakes worldwide from ENVISAT (2002-2012)

Over ten years, the European Space Agency operated the largest Earth observation satellite built to date, ENVISAT. Its instruments provided optical and thermal observations, and allowed for retrieval accuracies not previously achieved by spaceborne remote sensing. Using these observations, we created a comprehensive database consisting of water quality parameters for more than 300 lakes in the whole World. The Diversity II inland water database is designed to meet the requirements of the aquatic biodiversity community, but represents beyond this purpose the first globally consistent and reproducible knowledge basis of its kind.
We processed various water quality parameters and adopted lake surface water temperature from the ESA ARC Lake database. Monthly, yearly and a 9-year aggregated geophysical maps are provided. The potential of these products is demonstrated in the context of several case studies, wherein local experts assess the information content against the background of issues such as eutrophication and hypoxia, floating vegetation proliferation and the occurrence of cyanobacteria blooms. Qualitative links are established between those phenomena and biodiversity trends.