Macrohydrological dataset for the Amazon basin

Project: LBA-Ecology

LBA-Science component: Surface hydrology

LBA Investigation Team ID:  LC-04 (Foley / Costa)  

Investigator(s):  
Costa, Marcos Heil    Email: mhcosta@mail.ufv.br 
Oliveira, Carlos Henrique C.
Andrade, Ricardo G.
Bustamante, Thiago R. 
Silva, Fabricio A.
Coe, Michael T.  Email: mtcoe@facstaff.wisc.edu 

Contact(s):  
Technical contact person : Costa, Marcos Heil Email: mhcosta@ufv.br
CD order contact person: Diosana, Carmela    Email: ccdiosana@facstaff.wisc.edu 

Status:  Final  

Access Restrictions:  Restricted_to_LBA_research_community  

Data Set Location:  
CDrom to order from SAGE-University of Wisconsin  
Internet access from UW-Madison (http://sage.aos.wisc.edu/pages/available.html) and UFV, Brazil 
(ftp://ftp.ufv.br/dea/macrohydr).

Data Center Contact:  Diosana, Carmela  

Data Center URL:  
http://sage.aos.wisc.edu/pages/available.html
ftp://ftp.ufv.br/dea/macrohydr
 
Data Set Citation: Costa, M. H., Oliveira, C. H. C., Andrade, R. G., Bustamante, T. R., Silva, F. A. A 
Macro-scale hydrological dataset of river flow routing parameters for the Amazon basin. Journal of 
Geophysical Research-Atmopheres. In press.

Poster: available at directory "Poster", in Portable Document Format (PDF)

Full paper: preprint version available at directory "Paper", in Portable Document Format (PDF)

Datasets available:
River network at directory "Network and sinuosity"
River sinuosity at directory "Network and sinuosity"
River discharge at directory "Discharge"
Depth to the water table at directory "Groundwater"
Transmissivity of the aquifer at directory "Groundwater"

Parameter description:
(1) River Network: directory "Network and sinuosity", file network.17.txt (17 means the 17th revision). 
Text file of river directions, with 420 columns and 324 rows; northwesternmost corner at (6 oN, 80 oW), 
resolution 5-minute arc (12 cells per degree).  Number format is integer. Unit: adimensional. Conventions 
are: 
0: outside the basin; 
1: river flow northward
2: river flow northeastward
3: river flow eastward
4: river flow southeastward
5: river flow southward
6: river flow southwestward
7: river flow westward
8: river flow northwestward
9: river mouth (these points are actually outside the basin)
See more details in the paper.

(2) Sinuosity of each of the main rivers: directory "Network and sinuosity", file sinuosity.17.txt (17 means 
the 17th revision). Text file of river directions, with 420 columns and 324 rows; northwesternmost corner at 
(6 oN, 80 oW), resolution 5-minute arc (12 cells per degree). Number format is integer. Unit: percentage. 
Conventions: 0 is outside the basin, any number greater than zero is inside the basin. See more details in the 
paper.

(3) Time series of monthly means of river discharge for 122 fluviometric stations: directory Discharge; file 
stationdata.pdf describes the stations; files 001.xls through 122.xls have the time series and climatology for 
each station. xls is a spreadsheet format, readable by most spreadsheet software, under Windows, MacOS or 
Linux; file stationdata.xls has the same information presented in stationdata.pdf, but includes the x and y 
coordinate of the station, compatible with the file network.17.txt. Unit: m3/s. See more details in the paper.

(4) Depth to the water table: directory Groundwater, file Depth.txt. Text file of depth of the water table, 
with 420 columns and 324 rows; northwesternmost corner at (6 oN, 80 oW), resolution 5-minute arc (12 
cells per degree). Number format is real. Unit: m. Conventions: 0 is outside the basin, any number smaller 
than zero represents a below surface water table; any number greater than zero represents a water table 
above the surface (a wetland, for example). The original well data is in the file "original well data.xls". The 
original data was interpolated to the presented version using a GIS. See more details in the paper.

(5) Transmissivity of the aquifer: directory Groundwater, file transmissivity.txt. Text file of transmissivity 
of the aquifer, with 420 columns and 324 rows; northwesternmost corner at (6 oN, 80 oW), resolution 5-
minute arc (12 cells per degree). Number format is real. Unit: m2/day. Conventions: 0 is outside the basin, 
any number greater than zero is inside the basin. The original well data is in the file "original well data.xls". 
The original data was interpolated to the presented version using a GIS. See more details in the paper.

Keywords: Amazon basin, surface runoff, streamflow, macrohydrology

Abstract: Continental scale hydrologic routing models, also known as macrohydrological routing models, 
have evolved considerably in the past few years. As the models have become more sophisticated, they have 
represented a variety of new processes, and expanded their data requirements -- either as input data or as 
validation for the model output. This paper presents a new data set of large-scale hydrological river flow 
routing parameters for the Amazon and Tocantins basins. Part of this data set was required by the 
development of the continental scale hydrological routing model HYDRA and its application to the Amazon 
basin. HYDRA represents phenomena like floods, backwater effects and the seasonal hydrograph much 
more realistically than the previous generation of macrohydrological routing models. The data set contains 
data on: (1) river network, at 5 minute (~9 km) resolution; (2) time series of monthly means of river 
discharge, for 122 fluviometric stations spread throughout the basin; (3) sinuosity of each of 
the main rivers, measured at 111 river sections in the basin; and (4) depth to the water table and 
transmissivity of the aquifer, derived from measurements taken at 81 points throughout the basin.

Site information: 
Region: Amazon basin
Site: Amazon basin
Bounding coordinates: N: 6 oN; S: 21oS; W: 80 oW; E: 45 oW

Content time range:
River network: atemporal
River sinuosity: atemporal
River discharge: 1967-1996
Depth of the water table: unknown
Aquifer transmissivity: atemporal

Metadata author: Marcos Heil Costa (mhcosta@ufv.br; +55-31-3899-1899)

For further information about this dataset, refer to the paper or contact the metadata author.