Water level fluctuations substantially alter the fauna, flora and microbial community of near-shore aquatic ecosystems. Water level management therefore has the potential to strongly influence a wide variety of ecosystem processes. Many northern temperate lake food webs experience substantial methylmercury contamination, which is partially mediated by the action of sulfate reducing bacteria occurring in sediments that are periodically inundated. For lakes with methylmercury problems, water level management could be designed to reduce methylmercury contamination. These data summarize land cover and slope characteristics within specified, buffered areas around study sites that were sampled in several northern Minnesota lakes, as part of the project described above. The land cover attributes include percent cover (within each buffered area) and number of hectares of each land cover class. The slope attributes include the overall net change in slope within each buffered area, as well as the standard deviation.