GRDC Data Download provides River Discharge Data online

The GRDC Data Download portal has been completed and now in-situ river discharge data collected since 1988 in the Global Runoff Database are available with a few mouse clicks.

The Global Runoff Database of quality controlled “historical” mean daily and monthly discharge data has developed into the most comprehensive global river discharge data archive supporting climate-related programs and projects of the United Nations and their special organizations and the scientific and research communities at large. This constantly growing collection of river discharge data and station metadata has been endorsed by World Meteorological Organization (WMO) at the Eighteenth WMO Congress (Cg-18) as part of the initial datasets in the WMO Climate Data Catalogue.

The Global Runoff Database is operated by the Global Runoff Data Centre (GRDC) at the German Federal Institute of Hydrology (BfG) in Koblenz, Germany. The GRDC was established in November 1988, and operates under the auspices of the WMO.

The exchange of hydrological data and information on a global scale is the principal reason for operating GRDC. It connects national hydrological and hydro-meteorological services, the primary providers of river discharge data and associated metadata, and the scientific research community utilizing this unique data collection. Growing data contributions from National Hydrological Services are increasing the value of this unique dataset.

The GRDC Data Download portal is for web-based selection and download of river discharge data collected by GRDC on behalf of WMO. Map views support the usual zoom functions and selection tools. Hoover boxes, filters and search fields assist with the selection of suitable stations. Table views with configurable columns allow a more detailed selection. Selection of several items is summarized into one download. Calibration of hydrological models, evaluating model results, or validating remote sensing data with in-situ data can now be done without cumbersome data ordering procedures.

River discharge data are provided in different formats including WaterML2, which is an accepted WMO and OGC standard format for the exchange of hydrologic data.

GRDC’s Terms of Use and Data Sharing Conditions have to be agreed to before a discharge data download is possible.