Lakes and reservoirs are an important part of the terrestrial water cycle. However, relatively little attention has been given to lake and reservoir water balance modelling, their impacts, and interaction with complex terrestrial system processes. In this work, we present the implementation of lakes and reservoirs into mizuRoute, a vector-based routing model (termed mizuRoute-Lakes) that is agnostic to the choice of hydrologic or land model. In this work, we demonstrate capabilities of mizuRoute-Lake in modeling the water balance of lakes and reservoirs namely (1) data-driven lake/reservoir models; (2) multi-model lake models; and (3) abstraction from lakes, reservoirs, and river segments. Applications presented in this work are at global, regional, and local scales. The data-driven and parametric capabilities that are provided in mizuRoute enable incorporating past or future altimetry data (e.g. from the Surface Water and Ocean Topography, SWOT, mission for estimation of lakes and reservoirs storage) or information from water management model simulations regarding water demand and reservoir operation under climate change scenarios. We believe the capabilities presented in mizuRoute-Lake will enable the modellers to diagnose and compare water balance models in a more rigorous manner.