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Lake-TopoCat: Global lake drainage topology and catchment database...
Lake-TopoCat provides a global-scale dataset that links lakes with their drainage topology, delineates catchments, defines inter-lake pathways, and quantifies topological...Lake-TopoCat provides a global-scale dataset that links lakes with their drainage topology, delineates catchments, defines inter-lake pathways, and quantifies topological attributes (upstream/downstream relationships, drainage distances, outlet multiplicity, etc.). The input is based on HydroLAKES v1.0 and MERIT Hydro (3 arcsec), with algorithms to detect possible lake bifurcation, unit catchment delineation, reach segmentation, and network attribution. The database includes:
- Lake boundary polygons (same as HydroLAKES) enriched with drainage attributes
- Lake outlet points
- Unit catchment polygons corresponding to each lake outlet
- Inter-lake reach lines connecting outlets
- Lake-network basins (basin polygons delineating the full drainage domain of each lake network)
It covers ~1.43 million lakes (≥10 ha) and ~1.46 million outlets globally, and ~3 million inter-lake reaches, spanning ~77.5 × 10⁶ km² of catchment coverage (≈ 57 % of global landmass, excluding Antarctica). The dataset is freely available via Zenodo (DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.7916729) and is licensed under CC BY 4.0.
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UNEP GEMS/Water Global Freshwater Quality Archive
Large-sample datasets are essential in hydrological science to support modelling studies and global assessments. The present dataset compiles all freshwater quality data that is...Large-sample datasets are essential in hydrological science to support modelling studies and global assessments. The present dataset compiles all freshwater quality data that is available under open data policy (CC BY 4.0 or equivalent) at the GEMStat database for global water quality (www.gemstat.org). It includes over 20,000,000 measurements on 608 water quality parameters, covering 13,660 stations in 37 countries over the time period from 1906 to 2023.
GEMStat is operated by the GEMS/Water programme of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and hosted at the International Centre for Water Resources and Global Change (ICWRGC) and the German Federal Institute of Hydrology (BfG). The data in GEMStat is provided by National Hydrological Services of UN member states.