Satellite-based river gauging

On this web page you can find background information and data for satellite gauging reaches (SGRs) as published in Van Dijk et al. (2016). You are welcome to use these data in any way you see fit. To cite them do not refer to these web site but to the original paper, which includes this URL:

Van Dijk, A. I. J. M., G. R. Brakenridge, A. J. Kettner, H. E. Beck, T. De Groeve, and J. Schellekens (2016), River gauging at global scale using optical and passive microwave remote sensing, Water Resour. Res., 52, doi:10.1002/2015WR018545. LINK TO ARTICLE  

The easiest way to explore the available SGRs is by downloading the KML-formatted files and exploring them in Google Earth, which also gives you direct access to estimated hydrographs, performance metrics and the location of SGR cells. The KML files are organised and named by upstream catchment area, viz. large (1000-10,000 km2) and largest (>10,000 km2) and by performance, viz. best (Rmax>0.9), good (0-8-0.9), moderate (0.6-0.8) and poor (<0.6) (see paper for further details on the calculation of Rmax). DATA LINK

Alternatively, if you wish to replicate our experiment or undertake your own research using the same data we used, you can download all constructed SGRs including estimated the inundation signal from MODIS or GFDS, as well as the discharge observations used to construct and evaluate the SGRs. The data are formatted in 3 separate, self-described NetCDF files. DATA LINK

Fig7 Examples of good, bad and ugly satellite-gauging reaches (see paper for detailed explanation)