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Datasets / Flow

FlowManagement

HydroBASINS

Nested sub-basin boundaries, levels 1 to 12. Global watershed boundaries in a Pfafstetter hierarchy.

Sub-basins at twelve nested levels with topology (next downstream basin, distance to the outlet, Pfafstetter codes), so upstream areas can be traced without a DEM. The basin outlines on this map are built from level 4, merged to whole river basins.

Source
HydroSHEDS (WWF and McGill University)
Resolution
Polygons (levels 1 to 12)
Data type
Polygons
Time span
Static (v1c)
Temporal
Static
Access type
Direct download (external)
Formats
Shapefile
Coverage
Global land (-180, -56, 180, 84)
Licence
HydroSHEDS licence (free, attribution required)
Provider page
www.hydrosheds.org/products/hydrobasins

Cite as. Lehner, B., Grill, G. (2013). Global river hydrography and network routing: baseline data and new approaches to study the world's large river systems. Hydrological Processes, 27, 2171–2186. https://doi.org/10.1002/hyp.9740

Access

regionsLevel 4 sub-basins per HydroSHEDS region (change lev04 for other levels)

One archive per HydroSHEDS region that meets the box.

curl -fsSL "https://hydrological.org/api/v1/datasets/hydrobasins/links.txt?bbox=-75,-20,-50,5" \
  | xargs -n 1 curl -fLO

Also available as JSON: links · manifest · dataset record