The world’s freshwater ecosystems are vital components of the global biosphere, yet are vulnerable to the forces of climate and human induced change. There is increasing recognition that lakes play an important role in global biogeochemical cycling and provide key ecosystem services. However, our understanding of how lakes respond to environmental change at a global scale, and how this impacts on their status and function, is hampered by limited information on their chemical, physical and ecological condition. There are estimated to be some 304 million lakes globally, of which over 17,000 are greater than 10 km2 in surface area. These sheer numbers have militated against the systematic study of lakes.
Recent developments in semi analytical algorithms for the retrieval of in-water constituents coupled with recent (MERIS, MODIS & ATSR) and next generation (Sentinel 2 & 3) earth observation platforms and the capability to process full resolution image data in near real-time now provides the opportunity to develop a global observatory for the ecological condition of lakes.
'The ability to monitor a large numbers of lakes consistently at high frequency and globally will facilitate a paradigm shift in our understanding of how lakes respond to environmental change at different scales, and how this impacts on their status and function.'
With this as the primary platform, GloboLakes will synthesize and exploit consistent ecological and physical observations of lakes over two decades for over 1000 lakes globally. The ability to monitor a large numbers of lakes consistently at high frequency and globally will facilitate a paradigm shift in our understanding of how lakes respond to environmental change at different scales, and how this impacts on their status and function.
