Scaling relations reveal global and regional differences in morphometry of reservoirs and natural lakes

Ylva Sjöberg; Benoît Dessirier; Navid Ghajarnia; Fernando Jaramillo; Jerker Jarsjö; Davood Moshir Panahi; Diandian Xu; Liangchao Zou; Stefano Manzoni

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.153510

Scaling relations reveal global and regional differences in morphometry of reservoirs and natural lakes

Sci Total Environ. 2022 May 20:822:153510. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.153510. Epub 2022 Jan 29.

Authors

Ylva Sjöberg¹, Benoît Dessirier², Navid Ghajarnia³, Fernando Jaramillo³, Jerker Jarsjö³, Davood Moshir Panahi⁴, Diandian Xu⁵, Liangchao Zou⁶, Stefano Manzoni³

Affiliations

¹ Center for Permafrost (CENPERM), Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management, University of Copenhagen, Øster Voldgade 10, 1350 Copenhagen, Denmark; Department of Physical Geography and Bolin Center for Climate Research, Stockholm University, 10691 Stockholm, Sweden. Electronic address: ys@ign.ku.dk.
² Department of Physical Geography and Bolin Center for Climate Research, Stockholm University, 10691 Stockholm, Sweden; Baltic Sea Centre, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden.
³ Department of Physical Geography and Bolin Center for Climate Research, Stockholm University, 10691 Stockholm, Sweden.
⁴ School of Civil Engineering, Iran University of Science and Technology, Tehran 16846-13114, Iran.
⁵ College of Water Conservancy and Hydropower Engineering, Hohai University, Nanjing 210098, China.
⁶ Department of Physical Geography and Bolin Center for Climate Research, Stockholm University, 10691 Stockholm, Sweden; Division of Resources, Energy and Infrastructure, Department of Sustainable Development, Environmental Science and Engineering, Royal Institute of Technology, 10044 Stockholm, Sweden.

PMID: 35101483
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.153510

Abstract

Water bodies provide essential ecosystem services linked to morphometric features that might differ between natural lakes and reservoirs. We use the HydroLAKES global dataset to quantitatively compare large (area > 1 km²) reservoirs and natural lakes in terms of scaling exponents between morphometric measures (volume, area, shore length). These exponents are further compared to those expected from geometrical assumptions and constraints. Lakes cover a larger range of volumes for the same range of surface areas than reservoirs, and have a larger volume-area scaling exponent. The volume-area scaling exponent for reservoirs (but not natural lakes) and the area-shore length exponent for all water bodies follow the predictions for self-affine surfaces. Land cover and terrain influence the scaling relations more for lakes than for reservoirs. These morphometric differences may be used to model the impact of reservoirs and lakes on hydrological processes and associated ecosystem services at regional to global scales.

Keywords: Ecosystem services; Lake morphometry; Lake shape; Reservoirs; Scaling relations.

MeSH terms

Ecosystem*
Lakes*