GDBM: A database of global drainage basin morphology

Area of Science:

• Geomorphology
• Hydrology
• Climate Science

Background:

• Rivers and drainage basins are fundamental landscape units shaped by geological, tectonic, biological, and climatic processes.
• Morphometric measurements are crucial for understanding these processes and comparing diverse landscape settings.

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce the Global Drainage Basin Morphology (GDBM) dataset, a new near-global compilation of morphometric measurements for river channels and their drainage basins.
• To enable quantification of climate's influence on river and basin morphology by integrating data with climate zones.

Main Methods:

• Extraction of river channels from 30-meter resolution Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) topographic data.
• Classification of channels using a conservative drainage area threshold for high confidence identification.
• Inclusion of Köppen-Geiger climate zones to facilitate climate-influence analysis.

Main Results:

• The GDBM dataset contains morphometric measurements for 254,966 basins and their longest river channels.
• Measurements include channel length, slope, relief, normalized concavity, basin area, basin shape, and aridity.
• The dataset is generated with minimal assumptions, focusing on reliable channel identification.

Conclusions:

• The GDBM dataset offers opportunities for rapid, near-global spatial analysis of channel morphology.
• It has the potential to provide insights into landscape evolution across diverse climate regimes.
• The dataset can be integrated with other data (e.g., landcover, soil properties) for broader Earth and environmental science applications.