I specifically meant nuance relating to the product as well as actual lakes. If there's none, the word choice (and maybe the whole metaphor) is a distraction.
Also, as I mentioned in another comment, this phrase doesn't work for the metaphor. Dehydrating and rehydrating a lake isn't a good idea; it'd kill the ecosystem, and it'd be tremendously expensive. I'd rather stick to dehydrating and rehydrating something else, like fruit. Here, this looks similar to the fruit soup my in-laws make: https://www.cheaprecipeblog.com/2015/11/norwegian-sweet-soup...
Yep .... and that is very often what untransformed data is like ! Thanks for the metaphor - made my day reading that one and given me a whole new expression to throw about during product management discussions in my day job. :-D
The power of metaphor right there. Although I've never seen that phrase before, I know exactly what it means.