The browser you are using is not supported by this website. All versions of Internet Explorer are no longer supported, either by us or Microsoft (read more here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/windows/end-of-ie-support).

Please use a modern browser to fully experience our website, such as the newest versions of Edge, Chrome, Firefox or Safari etc.

Abdulghani Hasan

Abdulghani Hasan

Researcher

Abdulghani Hasan

Lessons learnt from checking the quality of openly accessible river flow data worldwide

Author

  • Louise Crochemore
  • Kristina Isberg
  • Rafael Pimentel
  • Luis Pineda
  • Abdulghani Hasan
  • Berit Arheimer

Summary, in English

Advances in open data science serve large-scale model developments and, subsequently, hydroclimate services. Local river flow observations are key in hydrology but data sharing remains limited due to unclear quality, or to political, economic or infrastructure reasons. This paper provides methods for quality checking openly accessible river-flow time series. Availability, outliers, homogeneity and trends were assessed in 21 586 time series from 13 data providers worldwide. We found a decrease in data availability since the 1980s, scarce open information in southern Asia, the Middle East and North and Central Africa, and significant river-flow trends in Africa, Australia, southwest Europe and Southeast Asia. We distinguish numerical outliers from high-flow peaks, and to integrate all investigated quality characteristics in a composite indicator. We stress the need to maintain existing gauging networks, and highlight opportunities in extending existing global databases, understanding drivers for trends and inhomogeneity, and in innovative acquisition methods in data-scarce regions.
Keywords: open data, river flow, global hydrology, quality control, time series

Department/s

  • Dept of Physical Geography and Ecosystem Science

Publishing year

2019-10-01

Language

English

Publication/Series

Hydrological Sciences Journal

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Taylor & Francis

Topic

  • Earth and Related Environmental Sciences

Keywords

  • open data
  • river flow
  • global hydrology
  • quality control
  • time series

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 0262-6667