River Discharge
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River-discharge measurements have essential direct applications for water management and related services, including flood protection. They are needed in the longer term to help identify and adapt to some of the most significant potential effects of climate change. The flow of freshwater from rivers into the oceans also needs to be monitored because it reduces ocean salinity, and changes in flow may thereby influence the thermohaline circulation. |
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| Domain: | Terrestrial | |
| Subdomain: | Hydrology | |
| Scientific Area: | Hydrosphere | |
| ECV Steward: | Ulrich Looser | |
| Products: | River Discharge, Water Level | |
Annual Freshwater Fluxes (1960−2009) into the North Polar Ocean
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Source: https://www.bafg.de/GRDC/EN/03_dtprdcts/31_FWFLX/FWF_into%20oceans_6009… |
ECV Products and Requirements
These products and requirements reflect the Implementation Plan 2022 (GCOS-244).
The requirements are found in the complete 2022 ECVs Requirements document as well: ECV River Discharge.
| Products | River Discharge | Water Level | ||||
| (*) | Unit | Values | Unit | Values | ||
| Horizontal Resolution | G | - | m | <20 | ||
| B | - | 20-50 | ||||
| T | - | >50 | ||||
| Vertical Resolution | G | - | - | |||
| B | - | - | ||||
| T | - | - | ||||
| Temporal Resolution | G | h | 1 | h | 1 | |
| B | 24 | 24 | ||||
| T | 720 | 720 | ||||
| Timeliness | G | month | 1 (day) | month | 1 (day) | |
| B | 1 | 1 | ||||
| T | 12 | 12 | ||||
| Required Measurement Uncertainty (2-sigma) | G | % | 5 | cm | 10 | |
| B | 10 | |||||
| T | 15 | >10 | ||||
| Stability | G | m y-1 / decade |
0.01 | m y-1 / decade |
0.01 | |
| B | 0.05 | |||||
| T | 0.1 | 0.05 | ||||
(*) Goal (G): an ideal requirement above which further improvements are not necessary. Breakthrough (B): an intermediate level between threshold and goal which, if achieved, would result in a significant improvement for the targeted application. The breakthrough value may also indicate the level at which specified uses within climate monitoring become possible. It may be appropriate to have different breakthrough values for different uses. Threshold (T): the minimum requirement to be met to ensure that data are useful.
Data Sources
This list provides sources for openly accessible data sets with worldwide coverage for which metadata is available. It is curated by the respective GCOS ECV Steward(s). The list does not claim to be complete. Anyone with a suitable dataset who wishes it to be added to this list should contact the GCOS Secretariat.
- WMO Hydrological Observing System
http://www.wmo.int/pages/prog/hwrp/chy/whos/index.php
- Global Runoff Data Base (GRDC)
- The Global River Discharge (RivDIS) Project
