HydroLAKES v1.0 — global lake polygons

The complete HydroLAKES v1.0 polygon layer in spatially ordered GeoParquet, preserving producer fields and geometry for lake analysis and joins. A separately versioned PMTiles layer provides generalized map display and source-ID attribute lookup.

Validated hosted release: v1-local-r3. The canonical record binds the public Source Cooperative package and its completed hosting checks.

Scope and formats

Static global lake polygons derived from composite legacy shoreline sources. This is not a 2026 shoreline observation; no GEE parity or independent scientific-accuracy claim is made. The packaged GeoParquet is spatially ordered and preserves source attributes and raw WKB.

Formats: application/json, application/pdf, application/vnd.apache.parquet, application/vnd.pmtiles, image/png.

Producer, source, and license

• Producer attribution: Lehner and Messager / HydroSHEDS. Cite Messager et al. (2016), DOI 10.1038/ncomms13603. Original conversion evidence retains Folia attribution.

• License: Producer license: CC BY 4.0. Retain attribution and technical-document notices, including the producer request concerning redistribution of the complete database in its original format. This product contains transformed GeoParquet.

• Temporal scope: Static research release compiled from multiple shoreline sources; not a current inventory of lake conditions.

• License terms

• Original download

• Research paper

• Folia converter/host

• Producer source

• Producer: Lehner and Messager / HydroSHEDS

Release files

• hydrolakes-polygons.parquet (asset)
• thumbnail.png (display_derivatives)
• data-license.json (data_license)
• source-license.json (source_license)
• hydrolakes-polygons-field-dictionary.json (field_dictionary)
• clean-rebuild-raw.json (supporting_files)
• evidence-provenance.json (supporting_files)
• source-cache-eviction.json (supporting_files)
• source-document.json (supporting_files)
• source-validation.json (supporting_files)
• spatial-order-clean-rebuild.json (supporting_files)
• spatial-order-retained.json (supporting_files)
• spatial-pruning-clean-rebuild.json (supporting_files)
• spatial-pruning-retained.json (supporting_files)
• HydroLAKES_TechDoc_v10.pdf (supporting_files)

Display package

Display release: display-v1. The manifest is pinned at SHA-256 f3dbb0d87553162a6b2a91172626eeecca9985fb8df54685ee64924ca826d841. Display assets are separate immutable derivatives bound to this analytical release.

• Display manifest
• Hydrolakes Polygons PMTiles (1122881121 bytes; SHA-256 2fc61a8257322bed3c71f86e3be92ed4835023bbb23f80bc9b2bb5167cb19d46)
  • Map style

Limitations

• This release contains polygons; it does not include the separate HydroLAKES pour-point source layer.
• Spatial ordering and added bounding boxes preserve original attributes and WKB; local display queries do not establish public-host performance.
• Live GEE count and all 522 sampled IDs match. There are 508 null/empty lake-name differences, strict geometry failures and three narrow source spikes absent spatially from GEE. Source geometry is retained; no exhaustive GEE or independent scientific-accuracy claim.

Public hosting checks are bound in the canonical report. Scientific validation retains its documented scope.