Derivation of Global River Network Attributes Including Downscaled Runoff and Discharge Estimates at High Spatial Resolution

Abstract:

River network geometry has been provided globally at 500m pixel resolution in the HydroSHEDS database, comprising nearly 10 million individual river reaches at an average length of approximately 3km. This effort has now been expanded by compiling more than 50 frequently used attributes that have been derived from state-of-the-art global remote sensing products or ancillary data sets. These attributes span a variety of thematic layers, ranging from river reach geometry attributes to climate, land cover, and anthropogenic characteristics. As a core attribute, each river reach has been assigned an estimate of long-term average monthly discharge. This estimate has been derived in a geospatial downscaling procedure utilizing the simulations from a coarse-scale global hydrological model, and the results have been verified against the observed discharge records of more than 3000 stations provided by the Global Runoff Discharge Center. This presentation will introduce the new database and discuss its quality and limitations.