SWOT Prior Lake Database - Light

The SWOT Prior Lake Database dataset provides a global inventory of lakes and reservoirs with polygons and other useful metadata. The database provides prior data on known lakes, making it possible to link SWOT lake observations over time and to compute storage change.

It is generated by combining multiple global and regional hydrographic databases into one congruent product. The current version is mainly based on the CIRCA-2015 (Copyright UCLA) lake water extent map but relies also on several other datasets, including the SWOT Prior River Database SWORD which is therefore compatible.

This light version gathers all lake_ids with their attributes and geometries. It is organized into 9 continents-based GeoPackage file.

You can find the full scientific version of the PLD in the collection SWOT Prior Lake Database - Scientific or a geometry-based version with only geometries in the collection SWOT Prior Lake Database - Geometries also available on this platform.

Please see the Auxilliary Data Description Document for additional information.

If you use the SWOT Prior Lake Database in your work, please cite:
Jida Wang, Claire Pottier, Cécile Cazals, Marjorie Battude, Yongwei Sheng, Chunqiao Song, Md Safat Sikder, Xiao Yang, Linghong Ke, Manon Delhoume, Marielle Gosset, Rafael Reis Alencar Oliveira, Manuela Grippa, Félix Girard, George H. Allen, Xiangtao Xu, Xiaolin Zhu, Sylvain Biancamaria, Laurence C. Smith, Jean-François Crétaux, Tamlin M. Pavelsky, The Surface Water and Ocean Topography Mission (SWOT) Prior Lake Database (PLD): Lake Mask and Operational Auxiliaries, Water Resources Research, 61,e2023WR036896, 2025. https://doi.org/10.1029/2023WR036896

Explore a gallery of open-source tutorials and tools intended to ease the utilization of SWOT data products here.