Mauritania Waterways from OpenStreetMap for Flood Risk and Watershed Analysis

OpenStreetMap exports provide water features across Mauritania, including rivers, streams, canals, lakes, ponds, and water bodies. The Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT) compiled this data, which was last updated on 2026-05-14. Completeness varies by region, with urban areas typically well-mapped and remote areas potentially incomplete.

Use Cases

• Model flood-risk based on the distribution of rivers, streams, and water bodies.
• Conduct watershed analysis using the network of waterways and natural water features.
• Create an environmental basemap for Mauritania using lakes, ponds, and canals as contextual layers.

Strengths

• Data is available in multiple geospatial formats including GEOPACKAGE, KML, SHP, and GEOJSON.
• Explicitly includes features tagged with `waterway`, `water`, or `natural=water` from OpenStreetMap.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Completeness varies by region, with remote areas likely less complete than urban areas.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.

Provenance

Source

OpenStreetMap

Collection Method

Volunteer-contributed mapping via the OpenStreetMap platform, exported by the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT).

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-14 20:40:35.471345; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Mauritania