I need complete, consistent and reliable numerical data on the area,
volume and average depth (of course, any two of them would permit to
calculate the third) of ALL the important water bodies of the Earth
(oceans, seas, gulfs, lakes, etc.). I have found SOME of that
informtion in different sites on the web, but ussually only for oceans
and a small number of seas (the IHC officially recognizes more than a
hundred); someimes lso the information is given in grossly rounded
numbers or is inconsistent (parts do no add to the total).

---

Request for Question Clarification by pafalafa-ga on 12 Nov 2005 07:29 PST

For consistency, it's hard to beat this reference source:


http://assets.cambridge.org/052161/7227/excerpt/0521617227_excerpt.pdf
World Water Resources at the Beginning of the Twenty-First Century


which has a lot of the information you're looking for, particularly in
Table 1.1--Oceans, Table 1.2--Seas, and Table 1.6--Lakes.


Unfortunately, it's not quite everything.  The Lakes, for instance,
show maximum depth, but not average depth.

Still...it's a start.  Let me know how it looks to you, and what more
you need to make for a complete answer to your question.

Thanks.

pafalafa-ga

---

Request for Question Clarification by pafalafa-ga on 12 Nov 2005 18:26 PST

Here are two more resources that provide some awfully good
information, and contain much of the data you asked for:




http://home.comcast.net/~igpl/Oceans.html
Oceans of the Earth
The Oceans and Selected Seas



http://home.comcast.net/~igpl/Lakes.html
Lakes of the Earth



Let me know what additional information you would like to make for a
complete answer to your question.


Cheers,

pafalafa-ga

---

Clarification of Question by gordomaravilloso-ga on 13 Nov 2005 11:56 PST

Sorry for the delay; I answered the same day but it looks like I did
not write it in the proper place. So I repeat it now.

First, thanks for your promt answer.
Second, I already knew the source you indicate; is very good, in fact
the best I have been able to find in the web. It is reliable and
consistent but not complete or as near to complete as I need.
Third, in any case I have only read the excerpt published in the web
(in several sites) and not the book itself, and
Third, because of the last fact, maybee two good pathways to explore
would be the book itself and/or its bibliography and reference pages.
The most likely is that the author has not made calculations of its
own but has made us of one or more primeary sources. Could oy find
uot?

On the bright side, the fact that the book does not give average depth
figures for lakes (only maximum dpths)is not so important, because you
can use te area and volume figures to calculae a good proxy.

Sncerely yours,

gordomaravilloso-ga

---

Request for Question Clarification by pafalafa-ga on 15 Nov 2005 20:09 PST

I had a look at the book, "World Water Resources at the Beginning of
the Twenty-First Century".

As you can imagine, it has a bibliographical list of references that
is quite long.  However, the references aren't tied to particular
facts or tables in the book, so it's well-meigh impossible to say how
the author arrived at the particular numbers in the tables he
presents.  I suspect he extracted them himself from innumerable
discrete sources.

Have you had a look at the other sites I mentioned:

http://home.comcast.net/~igpl/Oceans.html
Oceans of the Earth
The Oceans and Selected Seas



http://home.comcast.net/~igpl/Lakes.html
Lakes of the Earth


They are pretty good resources in their own right.  Let me know how
they look to you, and whether they come close to what you need.

paf

---

Clarification of Question by gordomaravilloso-ga on 19 Nov 2005 07:46 PST

I knew about the list of mayor oceans and lakes in "comcast". The
probem is that tey do not include mny of the water bodies whose data I
need.

Regarding the references in the book "World water reources at the
beggining of the 21st Century" -which I have not been able to find
here- I would suggest looking in the chapter whe already know. There,
when each of the tables is presented, I think it indicates the author
and year of the respective bibliographical reference (e.g. "Davis,
1974").

Sincerely,

Gordomaravilloso-ga

---

Request for Question Clarification by pafalafa-ga on 19 Nov 2005 08:18 PST

Nope.  The references are all presented alphabetically at the end of
the book, but are not tied in any way to the data in the tables. 
There's no way I can see to link a number in a table to any particular
reference.

paf

gordomaravilloso-ga,

You may already know of this database:

http://www.ilec.or.jp/database/database.html

It says it has data on 500 lakes - though the amount of data varies
with the lake. This site also gives general information on the source
of their data - but not the specific source for each lake.

Search strategy: "lakes of the world"

Oops! Previously, I hadn't gone further than clicking on the name of
an individual lake. However, if I then go to the bottom of the data
page for an individual lake, there is a "full details" button;
clicking on this for a "trial" lake led to a list of references for
the details on that lake. There may be too many of these references
unless there are just a few lakes that you want to investigate in
detail.

I've found some nice information including volume at this site.

http://geology.com/records/largest-lake.shtml