In this tutorial, you will learn how to download basin boundaries, lakes, and river data as shapefiles using HydroSHEDS. This guide will help you navigate the HydroSHEDS website and extract useful geospatial data for your Geographic Information System (GIS) projects.

Step 1: Access the HydroSHEDS Website

Open your browser and navigate to HydroSHEDS. HydroSHEDS is a free hydrographic mapping product developed by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and built primarily from NASA’s Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) data. It provides seamless catchment boundaries, river networks, and lake data suitable for regional and global GIS analysis.

Step 2: Explore the Data

On the HydroSHEDS homepage, look for the Explore the Data option and click on it. HydroSHEDS organises its data into four main products:

HydroATLAS is a global compendium of hydro-environmental characteristics that combines three sub-datasets — BasinATLAS, RiverATLAS, and LakeATLAS — covering 1.0 million sub-basins, 8.5 million river reaches, and 1.4 million lakes. Each feature is described by up to 56 hydro-environmental variables across categories including hydrology, climate, land cover, and soils.

HydroLAKES provides shoreline polygons for approximately 1.4 million lakes and reservoirs worldwide, covering all water bodies with a surface area of at least 10 hectares. Attributes include surface area, shoreline length, estimated average depth, water volume, and residence time.

HydroRIVERS maps a global network of approximately 8.5 million river reaches, representing around 35.9 million kilometres of rivers in total. Coverage includes all rivers with a catchment area of at least 10 km² or an average flow of at least 0.1 m³/s. Attributes include river reach length, river order, distance from headwaters and ocean outlet, and long-term average discharge estimates.

HydroBASINS delineates the world’s river basins into hierarchically nested sub-basins using the Pfafstetter coding system across 12 levels. At the finest resolution it contains approximately 1.0 million sub-basin polygons, making it straightforward to analyse hydrological connectivity and trace upstream and downstream relationships. All four datasets are interconnected, so they can be combined in your GIS projects.

Step 3: Download Basin Boundaries

To download basin boundaries, click on the option labelled HydroBASINS. Scroll down to find the section for continental downloads.

Select the continent you are interested in. For example, to download basin boundaries for Asia, click the Asia option. The download will begin immediately.

Step 4: Download River Data

Next, look for the HydroRIVERS option at the top of the page and click on it to access the river shapefile download.

As with the basin data, you will see download options organised by continent. Click the Asia option to download the river shapefile for Asia.

Step 5: Extract the Downloaded Files

Once the downloads are complete, navigate to your downloads folder. Extract both the basin and river data archives before loading them into QGIS.

Step 6: Load Basin Data into QGIS

Open QGIS and add the basin data by selecting Add Layer and then Add Vector Layer. Browse to the location of the extracted basin shapefiles and add them to your project.

Step 7: Visualise and Analyse the Data

Once the basin data is loaded, you can visualise it in QGIS. You will see various levels of basins available for analysis. Zoom into specific areas to explore the data further.

Step 8: Load River Data into QGIS

Repeat the process to load the river shapefiles. Select Add Layer and then Add Vector Layer, this time browsing to the extracted river data.

Step 9: Clip River Data to a Watershed

If you want to clip the river shapefile to match a specific watershed, use the Clip tool in QGIS. Set the river layer as the input layer and the watershed layer as the overlay layer.

Step 10: Export the Clipped River Layer

After clipping, export the river layer by right-clicking the layer in the Layers panel and selecting Export > Save Features As. Choose your desired output format and coordinate reference system.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. What is HydroSHEDS?

   HydroSHEDS is a free hydrographic mapping product developed by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). It provides catchment boundaries, river networks, and lake data derived primarily from NASA’s Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) at 3 arc-second (~90 m) resolution, covering the global land surface excluding Antarctica.

2. Are the datasets free to download?

   Yes. All HydroSHEDS datasets — including HydroBASINS, HydroRIVERS, HydroLAKES, and HydroATLAS — are freely available for scientific, educational, and commercial use under open licence terms that require attribution.

3. What is a river basin shapefile?

   A river basin shapefile is a vector dataset that stores the polygon boundaries of drainage basins or watersheds. In HydroBASINS, each polygon represents a sub-basin delineated at one of 12 hierarchical Pfafstetter levels, allowing you to work with basins at different spatial scales within the same dataset.

4. Can I download a river shapefile for a specific country?

   HydroSHEDS organises its downloads by continent rather than by individual country. After downloading and extracting the continental shapefile, you can clip it to a country boundary in QGIS using the Clip or Intersect tool.