HydroSHEDS

HydroSHEDS is the dataset family that global water analysis is built on: hydrologically conditioned DEM derivatives, the HydroBASINS nested basin hierarchy, HydroRIVERS river networks, HydroLAKES, and the HydroATLAS attribute compendium that attaches hundreds of hydro-environmental variables to every basin and reach. Led by WWF with academic partners, it is freely available for commercial and non-commercial use alike.

For engineers it answers the recurring "what's upstream" questions at screening scale — basin boundaries for a desk study, river networks for routing setups, lake volumes for water balance — anywhere on earth, in minutes. (Note the naming coincidence only: this directory's working title has nothing to do with it.)