Lake area and volume variation data in the endorheic basin of the Tibetan Plateau from 1989 to 2019

The Tibetan Plateau, known as the third pole of the Earth, is a region susceptible to climate change. With little human disturbance, lake storage changes serve as a unique indicator of climate change, but comprehensive lake area and volume data are rare in the region, especially for the lakes with an area less than 10 km² which are the most sensitive to environmental changes. In this dataset, we completed a census of annual lake area and volume change for 976 lakes larger than 1 km² in the endorheic basin of the Tibetan Plateau (EBTP) during 1989-2019 using Landsat imagery and digital terrain models. This dataset contains the lake extents shapefile containing the annual area and relative volume data from 1989 to 2019 for each lake. Besides, the lake seeds we used to calculate the relative lake volume are also published. <br>青藏高原（Tibetan Plateau）素有“地球第三极”之称，是气候变化敏感区域。该区域人类活动干扰极少，湖泊蓄水量变化是反映气候变化的独特指示器，但该区域全面的湖泊面积与容积数据较为匮乏，尤其是面积小于10 km²的湖泊——此类湖泊对环境变化最为敏感。本数据集针对1989—2019年间青藏高原内流盆地（endorheic basin of the Tibetan Plateau, EBTP）内976个面积大于1 km²的湖泊，基于Landsat影像与数字地形模型（digital terrain models）完成了年度湖泊面积与容积变化的普查。本数据集包含湖泊范围形状文件（shapefile），其中存储了1989—2019年各湖泊的年度面积与相对容积数据；此外，本研究用于计算湖泊相对容积的湖泊种子点（lake seeds）数据也一并公开。