Global and continental Simulated Topological Networks (STN) represent rivers as spatial and tabular data layers derived from flow-direction grids. The dataset includes a global version at 30-minute resolution and separate continental files for Africa, Australasia, Asia, Europe, North America, and South America at 6-minute resolution. It was developed by SCIOPS and represents an update to earlier work using methods from Fekete et al. (2001).
Use Cases
- Modeling river basin characteristics based on attributes like basin area and length.
- Analyzing hydrological connectivity and flow paths based on the derived topological network.
- Conducting continental-scale water resource assessments based on the 6-minute resolution data layers.
- Studying distance-to-river-mouth metrics for ecological or transport studies.
Strengths
- Provides two spatial resolutions: a global 30-minute grid and higher 6-minute grids for six continents.
- Includes multiple river attributes such as basin area, length, and distance to river mouth.
- Data layers are derived from manually corrected flow-direction grids to match vector river overlays.
Limitations
- Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
- Last update date is unknown; freshness unverified.
- Row count and file size are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
Provenance
- Source
- SCIOPS, via NASA Earthdata.
- Collection Method
- Derived from 30-minute and 6-minute flow-direction grids, with manual corrections to match vector river overlays.
- Time Range
- null
- Freshness
- Last updated date is unknown.
- Geography
- Global and continental (Africa, Australasia, Asia, Europe, North America, South America).