HydroBASINS is a global river subdivision dataset based on the hydrological core layer of HydroSHEDS, providing seamless global river subdivisions at a spatial resolution of 15 arcseconds. This dataset is designed to support hydrological, ecological, and environmental analyses, providing consistent, hierarchical catchment boundaries and river network topologies. It is suitable for various applications including hydrology and water resources, climate and Earth system modeling, biodiversity and conservation programs, catchment environmental analysis, large-scale spatial modeling, and GIS workflows.

Dataset composition:

• It contains approximately 1 million sub-basins, with an average area of about 130 square kilometers.
• It covers approximately 135 million square kilometers of global land area (excluding Antarctica).
• The Pfafstetter coding system is used to divide sub-basins, supporting navigation and upstream-downstream connectivity analysis at multiple spatial scales.
• A single combined dataset including all levels (01-12) and lakes are considered in the partitioning to improve the hydrological realism of lake-rich areas.

Data Format:

• The format is ESRI Shapefile (vector polygon).
• The coordinate system is the geographic coordinate system (WGS84).