Reconstructing Lake Storage for the Major Water Bodies in the Aral Sea Basin Using Multi-DEM Hypsometry

Huang S. Chen X. Yang L. Liu T. Li L. Ma X. Yue B. Wu N. Kurishbayev A.K. Duman I. Azadi H. Ma X.
March 2026 Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute (MDPI)

Remote Sensing
2026 #18 Issue 5

Highlights: What are the main findings? We develop a multi-DEM hypsometry framework to reconstruct near-monthly lake storage for 1993–2024, recovering storage during low-level periods without bathymetric surveys. Reconstructed changes agree with independent satellite altimetry (r = 0.93 for level and 0.90 for storage), outperforming above-water-only and conventional model-selection baselines. What are the implications of the main findings? Under whole-lake modeling, the Copernicus-based reconstruction provides a cumulative storage change of −214.30 km³, closest to the satellite altimetry estimate of −210.68 km³. Other DEMs overestimate the 1993–2024 cumulative loss by 66.15–141.01 km³; sub-lake modeling reduces this bias and provides an SRTM-based cumulative change of −248.38 km³. In arid-zone water resource management and water-security assessment, changes in water-body volume are key indicators of water availability and regulation performance. However, arid-zone lakes often lack sufficient bathymetric information to constrain geometry under low lake-level conditions. Shrinkage-driven hydrological disconnection can destabilize extrapolation of water level–storage relationships. This increases uncertainty in quantifying long-term storage changes. Here, we develop a multi-digital elevation model (DEM) hypsometry framework to reconstruct near-monthly lake storage for 1993–2024, recovering storage during low-level periods without bathymetric surveys. Reconstructed changes agree with independent satellite altimetry (r = 0.93 for level and 0.90 for storage), outperforming above-water-only (r ≈ 0.637 for water level) and conventional model-selection base-lines (r ≈ 0.753 for water level). The framework was quantified across three scenarios: expanding lakes, lake systems and reservoirs, and terminally shrinking lakes. For the persistently shrinking Big Aral Sea, under the whole-lake modeling assumption, the Copernicus-based reconstruction provides a cumulative storage change of −214.3 km³, closest to the satellite altimetry estimate of −210.68 km³ among the tested DEMs. In contrast, other DEMs overestimate the 1993–2024 cumulative loss by 66.15–141.01 km³. Sub-lake modeling further adjusts the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM)-based cumulative change to −248.38 km³, substantially reducing structural bias caused by lake disconnection. This study provides a transferable technical framework for lake storage reconstruction in arid regions under degraded low lake-level conditions and hydrological disconnection.

Aral Sea Basin , hydrological disconnection , low lake-level conditions , multi-DEM hypsometry , water storage reconstruction

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Postdoctoral Research Station, Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou, 310014, China
College of Geoinformatics, Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou, 310014, China
Moganshan Geospatial Information Laboratory, Huzhou, 313299, China
School of Geography, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing, 210023, China
Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Urumqi, 830011, China
Research Center for Ecology and Environment of Central Asia, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100101, China
State Key Laboratory of Tibetan Plateau Earth System, Environment and Resources (TPESER), Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100101, China
The National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Almaty, 050010, Kazakhstan
Scientific and Educational Technology Platform, Kazakh National Agrarian Research University, Almaty, 050010, Kazakhstan
Department of Geography, Ghent University, Ghent, 9000, Belgium

Postdoctoral Research Station
College of Geoinformatics
Moganshan Geospatial Information Laboratory
School of Geography
Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography
Research Center for Ecology and Environment of Central Asia
State Key Laboratory of Tibetan Plateau Earth System
The National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Kazakhstan
Scientific and Educational Technology Platform
Department of Geography

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