Environmental parameter dataset of Chinese Lakes from 2014 to 2023

The dataset provides monthly data of eight key water quality parameters and surface water temperature for 82,759 lakes in China from 2014 to 2023. The water quality data were generated and published by Luan et al. (2025) in Scientific Data 12: 572, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-025-04915-y. Air temperature was used as a proxy for surface water temperature. It was provided by the National Centers for Environmental Information under the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/data/global-summary-of-the-day/archive/, accessed 8 January 2026). The environmental parameters included are: Dissolved oxygen (DO; mg/L) Total nitrogen (TN; mg/L) Chemical oxygen demand (CODMn; mg/L) Dissolved organic carbon (DOC; mg/L) pH Electrical conductivity (EC; S/m) Total phosphorus (TP; mg/L) Turbidity (Tur; JTU) Water temperature (Temp; °C) The data are stored in CSV format (provided as ZIP file) and include monthly values for each lake along with corresponding geographic coordinates (latitude and longitude).