Global River BankFull Discharge (GQBF)

The GQBF is the estimated bankfull discharge across ~2.87 million km (length) of global river reaches. The bankfull discharge here is defined as the maximum flow rate contained within a river just before inundation occurs in the surrounding floodplain. We based our river bankfull discharge estimation on a newly developed river network, Global RIver Topology (GRIT), using GRIT’s river reaches as the spatial scale to represent the variation in bankfull discharge. We included all GRIT river reaches that coincided with the Global River Width from Landsat (GRWL) river masks (with overlapping ratio >=0.5). This selects river reaches with satellite-derived width measurements >=30 m, resulting in a total length of ~2.87 million km. Here, the GQBF represents the time-averaged bankfull discharge at <1 km (river length) spatial resolution. We generated this global bankfull discharge dataset using a machine learning model, which was developed based on a newly-compiled, observation-based bankfull discharge dataset and 31 predictors river characteristics and climate. The observation dataset consists of 2,657 sites, sourced and derived from literature values, cross-section measurements, and river gauging transects-based discharge-stage curves. We provide the data in both vector and raster format. Regions Vector files are provided in 7 regions with the following codes: AF - Africa AS - Asia (excl. Siberia) EU - Europe NA - North America SA - South America SI - Siberia SP - South Pacific/Australia The subcontinental catchment groups (vector, polygons) can be found at GRIT domain polygon (GRITv06_domain_GLOBAL.gpkg.zip). They allow for more fine-grained subsetting of data . Vector files are provided in geographic WGS84 coordinates (EPSG:4326). Vector GRIT reaches GRIT reaches with a list of attributes, including the estimated QBF. These river reaches represent rivers overlapping with the Global River Width from Landsat river mask, selected by grwl_overlap>=0.5. Other attributes inherit from the GRIT reaches dataset (available at https://zenodo.org/records/112193130 ) Attribute description Name Data type Description domain text catchment group, see domain index file segment_id integer global segment ID of reach cat integer domain internal feature ID reach_id integer global river reach ID, same as FID catchment_id integer global catchment ID upstream_node_id integer global reach node ID at upstream end of line downstream_node_id integer global reach node ID at downstream end of line upstream_line_ids text comma-separated list of global river reach IDs connecting at upstream end of line downstream_line_ids text comma-separated list of global river reach IDs connecting at downstream end of line grwl_overlap float the overlapping ratio between the river network and the GRWL river mask grwl_width_median float the median value of river width along each reach, calculated from the GRWL river mask in m grwl_width_std float the standard deviation of river width along each reach, calculated from the GRWL river mask in m grwl_value integer dominant GRWL value of reach length float length of reach in m sinuousity float ratio of line length and Euclidian distance between upstream-downstream nodes, i.e. 1 meaning a perfectly straight line azimuth float direction of line connecting upstream-downstream nodes in degrees from North qbf float the estimated bankfull discharge for each reach (m3/s) drainage_area float the upstream accumulated drainage area (km2) is_mainstem integer 1: the GRIT reach belongs to a mainstem river segment; 0: the GRIT reach belongs to a non-mainstem river segment Raster The raster version of the GRIT reaches (spatial resolution is 100 m). It includes 5 bands listed in order below. The raster files are chunked into 10 by 10 latitude, longitude degrees. In total, there are xx files, tiles without rivers are not included. A vector file of the tiles boundary is provided. Null value is indicated as -1. qbf integer the estimated bankfull discharge for each reach (m3/s) drainage_area integer the upstream accumulated drainage area (km2) river width integer the median value of river width along each reach, calculated from GRWL river mask in m, i.e., grwl_width_median above grwl_value integer dominant GRWL value of reach is_mainstem integer 1: the GRIT reach belongs to a mainstem river segment; 0: the GRIT reach belongs to a non-mainstem river segment Additional A vector file of the tiles boundary is provided as Global_tiles_10by10.GPKG. Change log v0.1 - 2024-09-29 First globally complete dataset published