Amazon and Tocantins River Basins Boundary Grid for LBA

A 5 x 5 minute resolution binary grid delineating the Amazon and Tocantins River basins, consistent with the Large Scale Biosphere-Atmosphere Experiment in Amazonia (LBA) study area. This dataset is an expanded version of the Costa et al. (2000) data set, provided by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The data is stored in ASCII GRID format.

Use Cases

• Delineating study areas for hydrological and ecological modeling within the Amazon and Tocantins basins.
• Masking satellite or climate data to focus analysis specifically on the LBA-defined river basin boundaries.
• Providing a spatial reference layer for GIS analyses of land cover, precipitation, or carbon flux within the major South American basins.

Strengths

• Provides a specific, binary (1/0) mask at a consistent 5-minute (approx. 9km) spatial resolution.
• The dataset's area is explicitly aligned with the major LBA experiment, supporting interdisciplinary research.
• Its presence across multiple government data platforms indicates established use and validation.

Limitations

• Key technical details like exact row/column count and file size are unavailable from all sources.
• There is a significant conflict in the 'last updated' metadata, with dates ranging from 1972 to 2026.
• The license is ambiguously noted as 'other-license-specified' without clear terms.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

Expanded version of the Costa et al. (2000) data set, gridded from original basin boundaries.

Time Range

Based on the Costa et al. (2000) source publication.

Freshness

2026-03-13 22:34:18.186885

Geography

Amazon and Tocantins River Basins in South America, aligned with the LBA experiment area.