Water Level Data from the Prek System of the Cambodian Mekong Delta (2020-2024)

As in many tropical deltas globally, annual floods shape the livelihoods of the largely rural population in the Cambodian Mekong delta. Agricultural cycles are keyed to the flood arrival, peak, and recession, and fish populations depend on inundated floodplains for their regeneration. However, as factors like climate change and hydropower infrastructure development are altering the Mekong’s hydrology, the inundation dynamics of its deltaic floodplains are shifting as well. Several studies have assessed the general changes of river discharge and flood extent on a basin- or delta-wide scale. Yet the sustainable development of this region is relying on dynamics at more local and specific scales, which have not been addressed so far. This dataset includes water level data from nine differential pressure loggers installed in the Kandal region in Cambodia. One of them was installed directly in the Bassac river, the others in Prek channels - canals that diverge perpendicularly from the river mainstream to establish a connection with low-lying floodplains and acting as vectors for both flooding and drainage. Data for each logger is in a separate folder, which contains the data, a Readme file with metadata, a diagram of the installation, a map of its location, and a photograph of the logger in situ.