The year 2023 marked the 35th anniversary year providing historical discharge data to the GRDC in cooperation with National Hydrological Services under the auspices of WMO. Since 1988, beginning with about 1,200 stations from 67 countries, the dataset grew constantly to about more than 10,700 stations from 159 countries in the year 2023. Datasets are provided for the climate-related programmes and projects of the United Nations and their special organisations and the science community. Since 2019, GRDC data is part of the WMO Catalogue for Climate Data and since 2020 the data request procedure is streamlined through the implementation of the GRDC data portal. This is mirrored in the steep increase of downloads, up to 12,000 requests per year by users from more than 130 countries. The scientific visibility of the GRDC datasets are reflected by more than 100 peer-reviewed publications published each year based on GRDC data. Moreover, we are particularly proud that GRDC discharge data as well as the WMO Basins and Sub-basins dataset form the basis for the first and second State of Global Water Resources reports, published by WMO in 2022 and 2023. Of course, GRDC is also aware of the ongoing technical development in relation to data and digitalisation and the call of the science community towards FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable, reusable) data. Recent milestone in this regard are the publication of the GRDC Major River Basins application and the GRDC-Caravan extension.
One of the most important task of the GRDC is the acquisition of data from WMO member states. In 2023, updates of discharge time series and station metadata from more than 30 countries have been successfully integrated into the database. This task is constantly ongoing and we hope to receive again data from many different countries of the world in the next year. At regional meetings contacts with additional data providers could be established and data exchanges are being negotiated. This clearly reflects GRDC’s sound relationship with data providers and their valued support to GRDC. Participation on scientific conferences and workshops underline a strong visibility of the GRDC data.
We at GRDC would like to express our sincere gratitude to our users and data providers. We are continuously working to improve relations with data providers for a better data exchange as well as to facilitate easier access to data and products to our users. GRDC is grateful for the high level of cooperation already achieved.
Together with the GRDC team, I personally wish you good health and all the best for 2024.
Simon Mischel
Links:
Release of WMO report: State of Global Water Resources 2022
Major River Basins application published
Release of GRDC-Caravan extension
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