GLORIN – GLOBAL LARGE RIVERS INVENTORY

Description The GLORIN (Global Large River Inventory) database is a global, vector-based river network constructed using key geomorphometric parameters such as river length, width, and longitudinal slope, sinuosity, and discharge. [UPDATED] The dataset includes all rivers longer than 400 km, classified as Long Rivers (LOR), and those longer than 400 km with a mean water surface width exceeding 150 m, classified as Large Rivers (LAR). For validation, we used Google Earth Imagery as well as the GRIT and OSM databases, to ensure an accurate source-to-sink representation. Mean water surface width was computed from orthogonal cross-sections generated at 50 km intervals along each river. Lakes and reservoirs were excluded from the cross-section calculations to avoid distortion using Global Lake/Reservoir Surface Extent Dataset (GLRSED). [UPDATED] Longitudinal slope was derived in Google Earth Engine using the Copernicus GLO-30 DEM, calculated along the full river course with 50km interval along the centerline. The final network topology is provided as ESRI Shapefile layers with corresponding attribute information. Additionally, separate files reporting rivers for each region are provided, based on the World Continent shapefile from ArcGIS Hub. [NEW] Version History v02 (June 2026): Added sinuosity, Köppen-Geiger climate zone classification, and downstream discharge from GRDC as new attributes. Minor geometry corrections applied to selected river centerlines. Attribute field names updated for consistency. v01 (January 2026): Initial release. Regions Vector files for Long Rivers (LOR) and Large Rivers (LAR) are provided for 6 global regions. Below are the details of each region, including river counts, river ID range, and corresponding projected coordinate system used. All files are also available in a common equal-area projection (EPSG:8857). River_ID Continent LOR (No: of Rivers) LAR (No: of Rivers) Projected Coordinate System Used Common Projected Coordinate System Used 100001 Africa 135 80 EPSG: 102022 - Africa Alberts Equal Area Conic EPSG: 8857 - WGS 84 / Equal Earth Greenwich 200001 Asia 384 209 EPSG: 27703 - WGS 84 / Equi7 Asia 300001 Europe 107 46 EPSG: 3035 - ETRS89-extended / LAEA Europe 400001 North America 176 120 EPSG: 102008 - North America Albers Equal Area Conic 500001 South America 226 112 EPSG: 102033 - South America Albers Equal Area Conic 600001 Oceania 21 5 EPSG: 27706 - WGS 84 / Equi7 Oceania Total No. of Rivers 1049 572 Attribute description of the layers: Name Data Type Description River_ID Integer64 Global river identifier Continent String Continent name River_Name String River name from OSM/Google Labels (English, where available). Not available river names are marked as ‘NoData’ Length Real River length in kilometres, measured along the source-to-sink centreline MeanWidth Real Mean water surface width based on orthogonal cross sections at 50km interval; lakes and reservoirs excluded using Global Lake/Reservoir Surface Extent Dataset (GLRSED) (Bai et al., 2024) MeanSlo_di Real Mean Longitudinal Slope of the entire river in dimensional units derived from DEM. (Cohen et al., 2018) Discha_max String [NEW] Downstream discharge in m³/s, extracted from the Global Runoff Data Centre (GRDC) Station Catalogue (https://www.bafg.de/GRDC). Values correspond to the long-term average (lta_discharge) of the GRDC gauging station located nearest to the river outlet, representing the most downstream available discharge record for each river. Rivers with no corresponding GRDC station record are marked as ‘NaN’ Sinuosity Real [NEW] Planform sinuosity index computed using the Geometric Attributes Toolbox (Nyberg et al. 2015) in QGIS (https://github.com/BjornNyberg/Geometric-Attributes-Toolbox). Sinuosity is defined as the ratio of the measured channel length to the straight-line Euclidean distance between the start and end nodes of each river feature (S = Lc/Lv). Computed from the digitised source-to-sink centreline geometry. Climate_ty String [NEW] Dominant Level 1 climate zone of the river, assigned by spatial intersection of the river centreline with the Köppen-Geiger climate classification (Beck et al., 2018) at Level 1 (major climate group). The five Level 1 classes are: A (Tropical), B (Arid), C (Temperate), D (Continental), E (Polar). Rivers spanning multiple zones are assigned the zone covering the greatest centerline length. Underlying sources: · SWORD: https://zenodo.org/records/15299138 · Google Earth Imagery · Global River Topology(GRIT): https://zenodo.org/records/11219313 · OSM waterways: https://www.openstreetmap.org · Copernicus GLO-30 Global DEM: https://dataspace.copernicus.eu/explore-data/data-collections/copernicus-contributing-missions/collections-description/COP-DEM · [NEW] GLRSED (Global Lakes/Reservoirs Surface Extent Dataset) (Bai et al., 2024) · [NEW] Global Runoff Data Centre (GRDC): https://www.bafg.de/GRDC · [NEW] Köppen-Geiger climate classification (Beck et al., 2018): https://doi.org/10.1038/sdata.2018.214 (Database: https://www.gloh2o.org/koppen/) · [NEW] Geometric Attributes Toolbox (Nyberg et al., 2015): https://github.com/BjornNyberg/Geometric-Attributes-Toolbox ) File Naming Convention All vector files follow a standardized naming structure: <Continent>_<Category>_<Projection>_<version>.{shp, dbf, cpg, shx, prj, qmd} Where: Continent = Africa, Asia, Europe, NorthAmerica, SouthAmerica, Oceania Category = LOR or LAR Projection = EPSG code (region-specific or EPSG8857) Example: Africa_LOR_EPSG102022_v02.shp Africa_LAR_EPSG8857_v02.shp Asia_LOR_EPSG27703_v02.shp Europe_LAR_EPSG8857_v02.shp Scripts Used The repository ('Scripts_GLORIN') contains three scripts used to compile some steps in the GLORIN database: Dem_Point_Extraction.js, Merge_SWORD_Reaches.py, and Slope_Calculation.py.