Global Dominant River Tracing (DRT) based Hydrography Datasets for Macroscale Hydrological Modeling

We developed a hierarchical Dominant River Tracing (DRT) algorithm for automated extraction and spatial upscaling of basin flow directions and river networks using fine scale hydrography inputs (e.g. flow direction, river networks and flow accumulation). The DRT algorithms are based on the D8 single direction flow method. In contrast with previous upscaling methods, the DRT algorithms utilize information on global and local drainage patterns from baseline fine scale hydrography inputs to determine upscaled flow directions and other critical variables including upscaled basin area, basin shape and river lengths. The DRT algorithm preserves the original baseline hierarchical drainage structure by tracing each entire flow path from headwater to river mouth at fine scale while prioritizing successively higher order basins and rivers for tracing. We applied the algorithm to produce a series of global hydrography data sets from 1/16° to 2°spatial scales in two geographic projections (WGS84 and Lambert azimuthal equal area). The DRT results were evaluated against other alternative upscaling methods and hydrography datasets for continental USA and global domains. These results show favorable DRT upscaling performance in preserving baseline fine scale river network information,including: (1) improved, automated extraction of flow directions and river networks at any spatial scale without the need for manual correction; (2) consistency of river network, basin shape, basin area, river length and basin internal drainage structure between upscaled and
baseline fine scale hydrography; (3) performance largely independent of spatial scale, geographic region and projection. The DRT upscaling process also generates other products useful for hydrological modeling, including flow distance, upstream drainage area,channel gradient and fractional area of basin boundary cells. These data include a set of DRT upscaled global hydrography maps derived from HYDRO1K and HydroSHEDS baseline fine scale hydrography inputs.