Description

The GLORIN (Global Large River Inventory) database is a global, vector-based river network constructed using key geomorphometric parameters such as river length, width, and longitudinal slope, sinuosity, and discharge. [UPDATED]

The dataset includes all rivers longer than 400 km, classified as Long Rivers (LOR), and those longer than 400 km with a mean water surface width exceeding 150 m, classified as Large Rivers (LAR). For validation, we used Google Earth Imagery as well as the GRIT and OSM databases, to ensure an accurate source-to-sink representation. Mean water surface width was computed from orthogonal cross-sections generated at 50 km intervals along each river. Lakes and reservoirs were excluded from the cross-section calculations to avoid distortion using Global Lake/Reservoir Surface Extent Dataset (GLRSED). [UPDATED]

Longitudinal slope was derived in Google Earth Engine using the Copernicus GLO-30 DEM, calculated along the full river course with 50km interval along the centerline. The final network topology is provided as ESRI Shapefile layers with corresponding attribute information. Additionally, separate files reporting rivers for each region are provided, based on the World Continent shapefile from ArcGIS Hub.

[NEW] Version History

v02 (June 2026): Added sinuosity, Köppen-Geiger climate zone classification, and downstream discharge from GRDC as new attributes. Minor geometry corrections applied to selected river centerlines. Attribute field names updated for consistency.

v01 (January 2026): Initial release.

Regions

Vector files for Long Rivers (LOR) and Large Rivers (LAR) are provided for 6 global regions. Below are the details of each region, including river counts, river ID range, and corresponding projected coordinate system used. All files are also available in a common equal-area projection (EPSG:8857).

Attribute description of the layers:

Underlying sources:

·         SWORD: https://zenodo.org/records/15299138

·         Google Earth Imagery

·         Global River Topology(GRIT): https://zenodo.org/records/11219313

·         OSM waterways: https://www.openstreetmap.org

·         Copernicus GLO-30 Global DEM: https://dataspace.copernicus.eu/explore-data/data-collections/copernicus-contributing-missions/collections-description/COP-DEM

·         [NEW] GLRSED (Global Lakes/Reservoirs Surface Extent Dataset) (Bai et al., 2024)

·         [NEW] Global Runoff Data Centre (GRDC): https://www.bafg.de/GRDC

·         [NEW] Köppen-Geiger climate classification (Beck et al., 2018): https://doi.org/10.1038/sdata.2018.214 (Database: https://www.gloh2o.org/koppen/)

·         [NEW] Geometric Attributes Toolbox (Nyberg et al., 2015): https://github.com/BjornNyberg/Geometric-Attributes-Toolbox )

File Naming Convention

All vector files follow a standardized naming structure:

<Continent>_<Category>_<Projection>_<version>.{shp, dbf, cpg, shx, prj, qmd}

Where:

      Continent = Africa, Asia, Europe, NorthAmerica, SouthAmerica, Oceania

      Category = LOR or LAR

      Projection = EPSG code (region-specific or EPSG8857)

Example:

Africa_LOR_EPSG102022_v02.shp

Africa_LAR_EPSG8857_v02.shp

Asia_LOR_EPSG27703_v02.shp

Europe_LAR_EPSG8857_v02.shp

Scripts Used

The repository ('Scripts_GLORIN') contains three scripts used to compile some steps in the GLORIN database:

Dem_Point_Extraction.js,

Merge_SWORD_Reaches.py, and

Slope_Calculation.py.