A selection of useful shapefiles in freshwater biodiversity research
Note that this listing of spatial data links is no longer actively maintained here. This list has now been integrated in the Freshwater Information Platform pages.
Biodiversity datasets and shapefiles
- The BioFresh BioMatrix
- The BioFresh BioMatrix holds contemporary distributions of
freshwater species mapped to the latest catchment layer;
HydroBASINS.
- More info and download links: on the BioFresh resource pages and at IUCN
- Manual: direct download link
at IUCN
Geographic region and country shapefiles
- TDWG Geographic Region Level 1-4: Continent, regions, provinces
and countries
- Shapefiles matching the TDWG-standards for geographic
regions ("World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant
Distributions"). It identifies geographic units worldwide
in a four-level hierarchy, incorporating continents,
regions, provinces and countries.
- More info: abstract at NHM,
pdf at TDWG,
info on downloads at KEW,
info on downloads at EDIT
- Level 1: Continents - direct download
link:
at KEW,
at EDIT
- Level 2: Regions - direct download link:
at KEW,
at EDIT
- Level 3: Botanical countries - direct
download link:
at KEW,
at EDIT
- Level 4: Basic recording units - direct
download link:
at KEW,
at EDIT
- Countries
- Grids
- Regular equal-area units at different scales.
UTM squares, latitudinal squares and
icosahedric triangles
- Download links: at EDIT
- FADA-regions
- Fada faunistic regions:
AfroTropical, ANTarctic, AUstralasian, NeArctic,
NeoTropical, OrientaL(Indomalaya), PACific(Oceania),
PalaeArctic
- Download link:
.zip
Hydrographic regions
- Global Lakes and Wetlands Database (GLWD)
- The Global Lakes and Wetlands Database (GLWD); Lehner,
B. and P. Döll (2004):
Development and validation of a global database of lakes,
reservoirs and wetlands.
Journal of Hydrology 296/1-4: 1-22.
Three levels are included, two are available as polygon
shapefiles and one as a grid;
- Level 1: Largest Lakes and Reservoirs
- Level 2: Other Lakes and Reservoirs
- Level 3: Level 1 + Level 2 + Extra Info (as grid)
- More info:
page on spatial data at WWF,
pdf at WWF
- Download info:
at WWF
(requires contact details for downloading)
- Freshwater Ecoregions of the World
- European ecoregions for rivers and lakes according to Illies
- GIWA Large Marine Ecosystem/Basin Delineation
- Global International Waters Assessment's Terrestrial
WaterSheds and Large Marine Ecosystems, a medium resolution WS delineation
based on terrestrial modifications to the NOAA-URI Large Marine Ecosystems.
- More info:
at FAO
- Direct download link:
at FAO
- WRI Major Watersheds of the World Delineation
- WRIBASIN: Watersheds of the World
published by the World Resources Institute, a cleaned version of this
watershed delineation enhanced to include WRI's original publication
attributes.
- More info:
at FAO
- Direct download link:
at FAO
- Rivers
- Data on rivers at country level from
DIVA-GIS
- Concatenated world shapefiles for rivers
available on request
- Waterbodies
- Data on waterbodies at country level from
DIVA-GIS
- Concatenated world shapefiles for waterbodies available on request
- Other spatial data on hydrographic regions
-
HydroSHEDS:
Hydrological data and maps based on SHuttle Elevation Derivatives at
multiple Scales
- Watershed shapefiles
at FAO
- European Catchment Characterisation and Modelling - CCM
River and Catchment Database, version 2.1 (CCM2)
- More info and download link:
at JRC
- GRDC Global Runoff Data Centre - Map products
- The Global Runoff Data Centre map products
include Major River Basins of the World (GRDC, 2007), Watershed
Boundaries of GRDC Stations (GRDC, 2011) and WMO Regions and Subregions
(GRDC, 2004).
- Please consult
bafg.de
for more info and usage conditions
Terrestrial ecoregions
- Bailey ecoregion scheme for the continents
- Ecoregions of the Continents
characterizes global potential natural vegetation at approximately
1/2-degree resolution. The dataset is based on a Russian vegetation map
(Gerasimov, 1964), updated by the US Fish and Wildlife Service
(Robert C. Bailey) and reprojected to geodetic coordinates at the World
Conservation Monitoring Center, England.
- Detailed info for the U.S.: at US forrest services
Climatic regions
- Climatic regions according to the Köppen-Geiger climate classification
- More climate data
Miscellanea
- Natura2000
- Natura 2000 data - the European network of protected sites
- More info: at EEA
- Direct download link: at EEA
- Anthropogenic Biomes
- The Last of the Wild
Other spatial data lists
Spatial environmental datasets
- Global Ecosystems Database (GED)
- Collection of spatial datasets on ecosystem features.
- More info:
at NOAA
- HYDRO1k Elevation Derivative Database
- HYDRO1k is a geographic database developed at the U.S. Geological
Survey's Center for Earth Resources Observation and Science
(EROS)
to provide comprehensive and consistent global coverage of
topographically derived data sets, including streams, drainage basins
and ancillary layers derived from the USGS' 30 arc-second digital
elevation model of the world
(GTOPO30).
- More info:
at USGS
- Atlas of the Biosphere
- Climate Change Data - GCM
- Datasets part of the International Centre for Tropical Agriculture
(CIAT)
climate change downscaled data, developed in the Decision and Policy
Analysis (DAPA) program. The data have been originally downloaded from
the IPCC data portal
and re-processed using an spline interpolation algorithm of the
anomalies and the current distribution of climates from the
WorldClim database
developed by Hijmans et al. (2005).
- More info:
at ccafs-climate
- Global land cover at GEO-Wiki
- The Geo-Wiki Project is a global network of volunteers who wish to
help improve the quality of global land cover maps.
- More info: at GEO-Wiki
- CGIAR-CSI Datasets - Consortium for Spatial Information
- Digital Elevation Data:
at cgiar
- Global Potential Evapo-Transpiration (Global-PET) and Aridity
Index (Global-Aridity):
at cgiar
- Global High-Resolution Soil-Water Balance:
at cgiar
- MODIS Land Cover Data
- Collection 5 Land Cover product (MOD12Q1)
- More info:
at BU