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HydroATLAS

HydroATLAS offers a global compendium of hydro-environmental characteristics for all sub-basins of HydroBASINS, all river reaches of HydroRIVERS, and all lake polygons of HydroLAKES.

The HydroATLAS database is divided into three distinct sub-datasets: BasinATLAS, RiverATLAS, and LakeATLAS which represent sub-basin delineations (polygons), the river network (lines), and lake shorelines (polygons), respectively. In total, HydroATLAS contains 1.0 million sub-basins, 8.5 million river reaches, and 1.4 million lakes.

HydroATLAS has been created by compiling and re-formatting a wide range of hydro-environmental attributes derived from existing global datasets in a consistent and organized manner. The resulting data compendium offers attributes grouped in seven categories: hydrology; physiography; climate; land cover & use; soils & geology; and anthropogenic influences. For each of the three sub-datasets, HydroATLAS contains 56 hydro-environmental variables, partitioned into 281 individual attributes.

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The HydroATLAS database is distributed in large file sizes due to the enriched attribute information. Users who only need geometric information and digital vector maps of sub-basin boundaries, river network lines, and lake shorelines may prefer to download the HydroBASINS, HydroRIVERS, or HydroLAKES products instead.

Global map of average temperature per river basin. Temperatures range from dark red (hot) to light blue (cold).
Global map of average temperature per river reach. Temperatures range from dark red (hot) to light blue (cold).
Global map of average temperature for all lakes. Temperatures range from dark red (hot) to light blue (cold).

Technical Documentation

For more information on HydroATLAS please refer to the HydroATLAS Technical Documentation.

For a full description of available attributes, please consult the BasinATLAS Catalog (60MB), RiverATLAS Catalog (67MB), or LakeATLAS Catalog (54MB), .

License

The HydroATLAS database is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) 4.0 International License. Please also refer to the HydroATLAS Technical Documentation for more details on the license and requested citations.

By downloading and using the data the user agrees to the terms and conditions of this license.

References

The development of BasinATLAS and RiverATLAS is fully described in Linke et al. (2019) and should be cited as:

Linke, S., Lehner, B., Ouellet Dallaire, C., Ariwi, J., Grill, G., Anand, M., Beames, P., Burchard-Levine, V., Maxwell, S., Moidu, H., Tan, F., Thieme, M. (2019). Global hydro-environmental sub-basin and river reach characteristics at high spatial resolution. Scientific Data 6: 283. doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-019-0300-6

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The development of LakeATLAS is fully described in Lehner et al. (2022) and should be cited as:

Lehner, B., Messager, M.L., Korver, M.C., Linke, S. (2022). Global hydro-environmental lake characteristics at high spatial resolution. Scientific Data 9: 351. doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-022-01425-z

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If general references are made to the overall HydroATLAS product, citations to both Linke et al. (2019) and Lehner et al. (2022) should be used.

Data download

The following HydroATLAS layers are available (click on the link to start downloading the zipped file):

Global BasinATLAS in geodatabaseformat (2.51GB).

Global BasinATLAS in shapefileformat (3.98GB).

Global RiverATLAS in geodatabaseformat (2.33GB).

Global RiverATLAS in shapefileformat (2.55GB).

Global LakeATLAS in geodatabaseformat (1.43GB).

Global LakeATLAS in shapefileformat (1.5GB).

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Note: Users who only need geometric information and digital vector maps of sub-basin boundaries, river network lines, and lake shorelines may prefer to download the smaller HydroBASINS, HydroRIVERS, or HydroLAKES products instead.

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