EFG F2.6 Perm salt lakes – current maps

F2. Lakes biome

This page provides information about the valid indicative distribution map for the ecosystem functional group F2.6 Permanent salt and soda lakes. For older or alternative maps, see here.

Methods

Here is the methods summary for Map code and version: F2.6.web.mix v4.0.

Major occurrences were compliled from a list of known salt lakes in Wurtsbaugh et al. (2017) and augmented by authors, then matched with names in the HydroLAKES database to identify natural lakes (types 1 and 3 of Messager et al. 2016). Minor occurrences were mapped within arid and semi-arid parts of selected freshwater ecoregions (Abell et al. 2008) by clipping ecoregions to exclude areas with mean annual rainfall >250mm (Harris et al. 2014a). Freshwater ecoregions (Abell et al. 2008) were selected if they contained occurrences of permanent salt or soda lakes if: i) their descriptions mentioned features consistent with those identified in the profile of the Ecosystem Functional Group; and ii) if their location was consistent with the ecological drivers described in the profile. Occurrences were aggregated to 10 minutes spatial resolution.

Datasets

CRU-TS-v4 (Harris et al. 2014):

Source of spatially interpolated climatological time series. Resolution: >1km2, time series. Accuracy evaluation: quantitative (subsets).

FEOW-2008 (Abell et al. 2008):

Source of biogeographical range. Resolution: variable (polygons), static. Accuracy evaluation: qualitative (experts judgement).

HydroLAKES-1.0 (Messager et al. 2016):

Source of validated distribution records. Resolution: <1km2, static. Accuracy evaluation: quantitative (subsets).

Saline-lake-list (Wurtsbaugh et al. 2017):

Source of validated distribution records. Resolution: variable (polygons), static. Accuracy evaluation: known records.

dataset	url
CRU-TS-v4	https://crudata.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/hrg/
FEOW-2008	https://www.feow.org/ :: https://geospatial.tnc.org/datasets/38da4656e8074e1c820c42cc21cd76cd_0
HydroLAKES-1.0	https://www.hydrosheds.org/page/hydrolakes
Saline-lake-list	https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo3052

Processing

Processing steps used in this map are: Selection :: Thresholds :: Clipping :: Reclassification :: Aggregation.

Map evaluation

This map is considered to be a Fine quality map series based on the following characteristics:

Concept alignment is Semi-direct,general.

Ground observations are NA.

The accuracy evaluation Quantitative accuracy assessment,documented,quantitative.

How to use the data

Available files

Following maps are considered current and valid indicative distribution maps for this ecosystem functional group. Web navigation maps are optimised for use in webapps, but they have similar methods and differ only in details of format and processing.

• Web navigation (code: F2.6.web.mix, version v4.0)
• Indicative Map (code: F2.6.IM.mix, version v4.0)

You can download geospatial data for this map from the following sources:

F2.6.web.mix (v4.0): Google Cloud bucket :: Zenodo repository (bundle of maps) :: Zenodo repository (EFG map) :: GitHub repository :: Earth Engine assets

F2.6.IM.mix (v4.0): Google Cloud bucket :: Zenodo repository (bundle of maps)

Note that you need to login to some services like mapbox or earthengine, and in some cases you also need to request access to the files.

License information

Indicative maps have been released with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.

Datasets used to create this map might have some restriction for commercial use, see details below.

dataset	license_info
CRU-TS-v4	https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/
FEOW-2008	https://www.feow.org/copyright :: custom license :: non commercial use
HydroLAKES-1.0	Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) 4.0 International License :: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

References

References used in this version of the maps.

• Harris, I., Jones, P.D., Osborn, T.J. and Lister, D.H. (2014), Updated high-resolution grids of monthly climatic observations - the CRU TS3.10 Dataset. International Journal of Climatology 34, 623-642 doi:10.1002/joc.3711 Revised appendix
• Abell R, Thieme ML, Revenga C, Bryer M, Kottelat M, Bogutskaya N, Coad B, Mandrak N, Contreras Balderas S, Bussing W, Stiassny MLJ, Skelton P, Allen GR, Unmack P, Naseka A, Ng R, Sindorf N, Robertson J, Armijo E, Higgins JV, Heibel TJ, Wikramanayake E, Olson D, López HL, Reis RE, Lundberg JG, Sabaj Pérez MH, Petry P (2008) Freshwater ecoregions of the world: A new map of biogeographic units for freshwater biodiversity conservation, BioScience 58: 403–414. DOI:10.1641/B580507
• Wurtsbaugh, W., Miller, C., Null, S. et al. Decline of the world’s saline lakes. Nature Geoscience 10, 816–821 (2017). 10.1038/ngeo3052
• Messager, M.L., Lehner, B., Grill, G., Nedeva, I., Schmitt, O. (2016) Estimating the volume and age of water stored in global lakes using a geo-statistical approach Nature Communications 13603 DOI:10.1038/ncomms13603