load_sites: Load Sites from CSV or Data Frame

In lakefetch: Calculate Fetch and Wave Exposure for Lake Sampling Points

Load Sites from CSV or Data Frame

Description

Load and validate site data for fetch calculation. Automatically detects coordinate columns (latitude/longitude) and cleans the data.

Usage

load_sites(x, lat_col = NULL, lon_col = NULL, site_col = NULL, lake_col = NULL)

Arguments

x	Either a file path to a CSV file or a data.frame with site data.
lat_col	Optional character string specifying the name of the latitude column. If NULL (default), auto-detects columns starting with "lat".
lon_col	Optional character string specifying the name of the longitude column. If NULL (default), auto-detects columns starting with "lon".
site_col	Optional character string specifying the name of the site identifier column. If NULL (default), auto-detects a column named "site".
lake_col	Optional character string specifying the name of the lake name column. If NULL (default), auto-detects common lake name patterns.

Details

The function:

• Detects latitude/longitude columns (names starting with "lat"/"lon")

• Cleans coordinate values (removes non-numeric characters)

• Creates Site column if not present

• Removes rows with invalid or missing coordinates

• Detects location name from data columns or filename

Column names can be specified explicitly using the lat_col, lon_col, site_col, and lake_col arguments. This is useful when your data uses non-standard column names that the auto-detection cannot find.

Value

A data.frame with columns Site, latitude, longitude, and any additional columns from the input. Includes attributes "location_name" and "location_column" if a location was detected.

Examples

# Load from data frame
df <- data.frame(
  Site = c("A", "B", "C"),
  latitude = c(43.42, 43.43, 43.41),
  longitude = c(-73.69, -73.68, -73.70)
)
sites <- load_sites(df)

# Load with custom column names
df2 <- data.frame(
  sample_id = c("A", "B"),
  y_coord = c(43.42, 43.43),
  x_coord = c(-73.69, -73.68),
  reservoir = c("Lake One", "Lake One")
)
sites <- load_sites(df2, lat_col = "y_coord", lon_col = "x_coord",
                    site_col = "sample_id", lake_col = "reservoir")

lakefetch documentation built on March 20, 2026, 5:10 p.m.