A continuous dataset for the lakes in the Hindu Kush Himalayas and Tibetan Plateau from the 1970s through 2020

The Third Pole, encompassing the Hindu Kush Himalayas (HKH), and the Tibetan Plateau (TP), is one of the world’s most sensitive regions to climate change. The region nourishes numerous lakes as a valuable indicator of environmental changes. Although several lake datasets for the region already exist, high-resolution lake dataset, especially the inclusion of small lakes are largely lacking. Based on free satellite images collected from NASA and ESA, we provided a year-by-year lake dataset (including all the lakes &gt; 0.0036 km²) for the Hindu Kush Himalayas and Tibetan Plateau for the period from the 1970s to 2020. We also divided the entire regions into 9 Asian headwater regions and the TP Interior for further detailed verifications at basin level. Our dataset is quantitatively consistent with previous investigation results. The results indicated that our dataset can serve as an input for further verifications of various phenomenon related to climate change in the HKH and TP. <br> There are two files for this dataset, including the 'lake_data' file and a 'Readme' file.

第三极（Third Pole）涵盖兴都库什山脉（Hindu Kush Himalayas, HKH）与青藏高原（Tibetan Plateau, TP），是全球对气候变化最为敏感的区域之一。该区域孕育了大量湖泊，是环境变化的重要指示因子。尽管该区域已有多款湖泊数据集面世，但高分辨率湖泊数据集（尤其是纳入小型湖泊的数据集）仍大幅匮乏。
本研究基于从美国国家航空航天局（NASA）与欧洲空间局（ESA）获取的免费卫星影像，构建了1970年代至2020年期间兴都库什山脉与青藏高原的逐年湖泊数据集（涵盖所有面积大于0.0036平方千米的湖泊）。本研究还将整个研究区域划分为9个亚洲河源区与青藏高原内陆区，以支持流域尺度下的精细化验证工作。本数据集与既往调研结果在定量层面保持一致。研究结果表明，本数据集可作为兴都库什山脉与青藏高原地区各类气候变化相关现象后续验证的输入数据。
本数据集包含两个文件，分别为`lake_data`文件与`Readme`文件。