The National River Flow Archive (NRFA) is the UK's focal point for river flow data and is the primary archive of daily and peak river flows for the United Kingdom. The archive incorporates daily, monthly and flood peak data from over 1500 gauging stations across the UK.

The NRFA holds a wide range of hydrological information to assist in the understanding and interpretation of measured river flows. In addition to time series of gauged river flow, the data centre maintains hydrometric information relating to the gauging stations and the catchments they command and data, quantifying other parts of the hydrological cycle.

The National River Flow Archive (NRFA) is the UK's focal point for hydrometric data, providing stewardship of, and access to, daily and monthly river flow data for some 1500 gauging stations nationally. In addition a range of information concerning the catchments of these gauging station is available either in the form of statistics or spatial data, including digitised catchment boundaries. The NRFA is mandated by UK government (Defra) and the devolved administrations of Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales to provide data and information on water resources nationally. The NRFA is a major component of the National Water Archive and part of CEH's Environmental Information Data Centre.

List of all NRFA Gauging stations pulled from NRFA API. Fields containing links to station info webpage and catch daily rainfall data download have been added to the attribute table.

Daily mean river flow, a.k.a. gauged daily flows (GDF), measured at over 1500 points on the river network across Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Most stations are managed by the Measuring Authorities (Environment Agency, Scottish Environmental Protection Agency, Natural Resources Wales and the Rivers Agency of Northern Ireland), and the daily flows are generally the average of the raw 15 minute series. GDF values are expressed as cubic metres per second (abbreviated to m3s-1 and sometimes also referred to as cumecs) in a water-day (09.00 to 09.00 GMT) or, where indicated, a calendar day. The National River Flow Archive also holds detailed information about river gauging stations and their catchments.

Catchment boundaries for all the National River Flow Archive (NRFA) gauging stations. The National River Flow Archive provides access to flow data for 1500 gauging stations across the UK, as well as information on the gauging stations and their catchments, including catchment statistics on land cover, geology, rainfall and altitude. Catchment boundaries can be downloaded individually for each station, or a bulk extraction can be requested from the NRFA help desk via email.

This dataset is an update to the National River Flow Archive's Peak Flow Dataset including the files for use in the WINFAP software for flood estimation. The dataset includes Annual Maxima (AMAX) and Peaks over Threshold (POT) data for 939 gauging stations which have been updated with an additional water year of data (October 2019 to September 2020) in England, Northern Ireland and Wales. No update was available for sites in Scotland due to issues with the hydrometric archive. This dataset is superseded by NRFA Peak Flow Dataset V11.0. This work was supported by the Natural Environment Research Council award number NE/R016429/1 as part of the UK-SCAPE programme delivering National Capability.

This dataset is model output from the GR4J lumped catchment hydrology model. It provides 500 model realisations of daily river flow, in cubic metres per second (cumecs, m3/s), for 303 UK catchments for the period between 1891-2015. The modelled catchments are part of the National River Flow Archive (NRFA) (https://nrfa.ceh.ac.uk/) and provide good spatial coverage across the UK. These flow reconstructions were produced as part of the Research Councils UK (RCUK) funded Historic Droughts and IMPETUS projects, to provide consistent modelled daily flow data across the UK from 1891-2015, with estimates of uncertainty. This dataset is an outcome of the Historic Droughts Project (grant number: NE/L01016X/1). The data are provided in two formats to help the user account for uncertainty: (1) a 500-member ensemble of daily river flow time series for each catchment, with their corresponding model parameters and evaluation metric scores of model performance. (2) a single river flow time series (one corresponding to the top run of the 500), with the maximum and minimum daily limits of the 500 ensemble members.

Quality characteristics for 21586 river flow time series from 13 datasets worldwide. The 13 datasets are: the Global Runoff Database from the Global Runoff Data Center (GRDC), the Global River Discharge Data (RIVDIS; Vörösmarty et al., 1998), Surface-Water Data from the United States Geological Survey (USGS), HYDAT from the Water Survey of Canada (WSC), WISKI from the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute (SMHI), Hidroweb from the Brazilian National Water Agency (ANA), National data from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BOM), Spanish river flow data from the Ecological Transition Ministry (Spain), R-ArcticNet v. 4.0 from the Pan-Arctic Project Consortium (R-ArcticNet), Russian River data (NCAR-UCAR; Bodo, 2000), Chinese river flow data from the China Hydrology Data Project (CHDP; Henck et al., 2010, 2011), the European Water Archive from GRDC - EURO-FRIEND-Water (EWA), and the GEWEX Asian Monsoon Experiment (GAME) – Tropics dataset provided by the Royal Irrigation Department of Thailand. Quality characteristics are based on availability, outliers, homogeneity and trends: overall availability (%), longest availability (%), continuity (%), monthly availability (%), outliers ratio (%), homogeneity of annual flows (number of statistical tests agreeing), trend in annual flows, trend in one month of the year.

Bodo, B. (2000) Russian River Flow Data by Bodo. Boulder CO: Research Data Archive at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, Computational and Information Systems Laboratory. Retrieved from http://rda.ucar.edu/datasets/ds553.1/

Henck, A. C., Huntington, K. W., Stone, J. O., Montgomery, D. R. & Hallet, B. (2011) Spatial controls on erosion in the Three Rivers Region, southeastern Tibet and southwestern China. Earth and Planetary Science Letters 303(1–2), 71–83. doi:10.1016/j.epsl.2010.12.038

Henck, A. C., Montgomery, David R., Huntington, K. W. & Liang, C. (2010) Monsoon control of effective discharge, Yunnan and Tibet. Geology 38(11), 975–978. doi:10.1130/G31444.1

Vörösmarty, C. J., Fekete, B. M. & Tucker, B. A. (1998) Global River Discharge, 1807-1991, V[ersion]. 1.1 (RivDIS). doi:10.3334/ornldaac/199

The dataset includes six files of UK physical river characteristics including five files of gridded data at 1 km x 1 km resolution and one comma separated table. The data includes: • Drainage directions (D8 flow method), ESRI coding • Drainage directions (D8 flow method), unifhy (python hydrology framework) coding • Catchment areas (km2) • Widths of bankfull rivers (m) • Depths of bankfull rivers (m) • NRFA gauging station locations (easting (m), northing (m)) Two versions of drainage directions are provided, both have the same drainage directions but different numbering systems. The comma separated NRFA (National River Flow Archive) gauging station locations table provides the best locations of 1499 river flow gauging stations on the 1km grids, together with the approximate error in the 1km × 1km gridded delineation of the upstream catchment area. All datasets are provided on the British National Grid. Full details about this dataset can be found at https://doi.org/10.5285/8df65124-68e9-4c68-8659-1c6b82c735e9

This compilation of monthly river flow rate data, for most of the globe except former Soviet Union countries, was prepared by Byron Bodo from a combination of datasets from UNESCO, WMO GRDC, the RIVDIS by Vorosmarty (1998), and others. The overall average length of period of record is about 26.7 years. About 2/3 of the gauge records have from 10-100+ years of data. The USGS offers the CDROM "Hydro-Climatic Data Network: Streamflow Data Set, 1874-1988". This consists of streamflow data measured at 1659 sites throughout the US and its territories. Daily mean, monthly mean, annual mean, minimum and maximum values of discharge are given for each water year. Stations selected distinguish human influences.

This dataset contains monthly river flow data for stations (gauges) on Canadian rivers and streams.

This dataset is an inventory of reservoir details for the UK. It provides information, including reservoir location, type (impounding or non-impounding), use (water resources, hydro-electric, ecological, flood storage, canal), capacity, planning date, construction date, catchment National River Flow Archive (NRFA) gauge references and membership of a reservoir group, based on current usage within the CEH Monthly Hydrological Summary (https://nrfa.ceh.ac.uk/monthly-hydrological-summary-uk). The dataset comprises 273 individual reservoirs, which amount to approximately 90% of total UK reservoir storage. Data quality has been recorded, using a data flag system and a notes section, with references relevant to each reservoir provided. Full details about this dataset can be found at https://doi.org/10.5285/f5a7d56c-cea0-4f00-b159-c3788a3b2b38

The USGS National Hydrography Dataset (NHD) downloadable data collection from The National Map (TNM) is a comprehensive set of digital spatial data that encodes information about naturally occurring and constructed bodies of surface water (lakes, ponds, and reservoirs), paths through which water flows (canals, ditches, streams, and rivers), and related entities such as point features (springs, wells, stream gages, and dams). The information encoded about these features includes classification and other characteristics, delineation, geographic name, position and related measures, a "reach code" through which other information can be related to the NHD, and the direction of water flow. The network of reach codes delineating water and transported material flow allows users to trace movement in upstream and downstream directions. In addition to this geographic information, the dataset contains metadata that supports the exchange of future updates and improvements to the data. The NHD supports many applications, such as making maps, geocoding observations, flow modeling, data maintenance, and stewardship. For additional information on NHD, go to https://www.usgs.gov/core-science-systems/ngp/national-hydrography.

DWR was the steward for NHD and Watershed Boundary Dataset (WBD) in California. We worked with other organizations to edit and improve NHD and WBD, using the business rules for California. California's NHD improvements were sent to USGS for incorporation into the national database. The most up-to-date products are accessible from the USGS website. Please note that the California portion of the National Hydrography Dataset is appropriate for use at the 1:24,000 scale.

For additional derivative products and resources, including the major features in geopackage format, please go to this page: https://data.cnra.ca.gov/dataset/nhd-major-features Archives of previous statewide extracts of the NHD going back to 2018 may be found at https://data.cnra.ca.gov/dataset/nhd-archive.

In September 2022, USGS officially notified DWR that the NHD would become static as USGS resources will be devoted to the transition to the new 3D Hydrography Program (3DHP). 3DHP will consist of LiDAR-derived hydrography at a higher resolution than NHD. Upon completion, 3DHP data will be easier to maintain, based on a modern data model and architecture, and better meet the requirements of users that were documented in the Hydrography Requirements and Benefits Study (2016). The initial releases of 3DHP include NHD data cross-walked into the 3DHP data model. It will take several years for the 3DHP to be built out for California. Please refer to the resources on this page for more information.

The FINAL,STATIC version of the National Hydrography Dataset for California was published for download by USGS on December 27, 2023. This dataset can no longer be edited by the state stewards. The next generation of national hydrography data is the USGS 3D Hydrography Program (3DHP).

Questions about the California stewardship of these datasets may be directed to nhd_stewardship@water.ca.gov.

Monthly River flow rates for Russia and former Soviet Union countries prepared by Byron Bodo whereby data were combined from ds552.0 (UNESCO and GRD sets) and ds553.0 (Russian set from an exchange project between the U.S. and USSR). Exact dates vary by station. See the inventory [https://rda.ucar.edu/datasets/ds553.1/inventories/invussr1.xls] for detailed information. Data validation involved corrections which are documented. This is an update of the March 1999 version.

This dataset contains time series of all available monthly river flow rates observed at the farthest downstream station for the world's largest 925 rivers, plus long-term mean river flow rates and continental discharge into the individual and global oceans, produced originally by Dai and Trenberth (2002, JHM) and Dai et al. (2009, Journal of Climate), and updated by Dai (2016, AGU Monograph 221) and Dai (2021, Climate Dynamics).

This dataset contains monthly river flow rates for 4,425 locations around the world except for the former Soviet Union. This dataset combines the UNESCO set [https://rda.ucar.edu/datasets/ds552.0/] plus 3,455 gauges, thus improving spatial coverage over much of the world with major gains in Brazil, Australia and Argentina. The "new" gauges have not been subjected to the rigorous comparisons of the benchmark UNESCO portion. Their locations, names, and drainage areas have been edited, and obvious errors (e.g. egregious extremes, replicates) removed from flow rates. Data sources and the edits are documented. The USGS offers a CDROM "Hydro-Climatic Data Network: Streamflow Data Set, 1874-1988". This consists of streamflow data measured at 1659 sites throughout the US and its territories. Daily mean, monthly mean, annual mean, minimum and maximum values of discharge are given for each water year. Stations selected distinguish human influences.

This is Approval for Access product AfA305 Realtime Flood Data River Flow. This dataset covers monitoring data that is only updated on our systems on a daily update cycle. This is usually increased during times of flooding etc. Readings are transferred via telemetry to internal and external systems in, or close to real time. This data may be transferred to these systems or users at different intervals varying, for example, from once per day during normal conditions to several times per day during a flood event. Data for sites in Wales is included in the Open Data feed, but is owned by Natural Resources Wales (NRW). NRW also class the data as Open Data, and you may use it under the same terms as the England data (the standard Open Government Licence, available on The National Archives website). This data is retrieved automatically and is unvalidated. Estimates of flow (typically how many cubic metres per second). Information is available for river gauging stations throughout England. Technical information used for flow calculation at flow gauging stations is also provided. For example, crest tappings at a weir. Attribution statement: © Environment Agency copyright and/or database right 2015. All rights reserved.

This dataset is part of Integrated Hydrological Units (IHU) of the UK, a set of geographical reference units for hydrological purposes including river flow measurement and hydrometric data collection. A Section is the drainage area of a watercourse between two confluences. Only confluences of named watercourses were considered. Each Section carries a name constructed from names of the major river flowing through the Section, the major river flowing into the Section, and the major river into which the Section flows. Sections are spatially consistent with Groups: each Group is made up of one or more Section. Each Section is associated with one Catchment representing the full area upstream from the Section outlet. Identifiers and attributes have been calculated so that direct upstream and direct downstream IHU units can be selected. This layer currently covers Great Britain only as no dataset with river geometries and names with suitable detail is available for Northern Ireland. Full details about this dataset can be found at https://doi.org/10.5285/a6e37e39-9e10-4647-a110-12d902403095

This dataset provides 100 model realisations of daily river flow in cubic metres per second (m3/s) for 1,366 catchments, for the period 1962 to 2015. The dataset is model output from the DECIPHeR hydrological model driven by observed climate data (CEH-GEAR rainfall and CHESS-PE potential evapotranspiration). The modelled catchments correspond to locations of National River Flow Archive (NRFA) gauging stations and provide good spatial coverage across the UK. The dataset was produced as part of MaRIUS (Managing the Risks, Impacts and Uncertainties of drought and water Scarcity) to provide national scale probabilistic flow simulations and predictions for UK drought risk analysis. MaRIUS was a UK NERC-funded research project (2014-2017) that developed a risk-based approach to drought and water scarcity. Full details about this dataset can be found at https://doi.org/10.5285/d770b12a-3824-4e40-8da1-930cf9470858

The National Water Model (NWM) is a water forecasting model operated by the National Water Center (NWC) of the NOAA National Weather Service. The NWM continually forecasts flows on 2.7 million stream reaches covering 3.2 million miles of streams and rivers in the continental United States [1]. It operates as part of the national weather forecasting system, with inputs from NOAA numerical weather prediction models, and from weather and water conditions observed through the US Geological Survey's National Water Information System. Reference materials for the computational framework behind NWM is published by NCAR [9] [10].

The NWC generates NWM streamflow forecasts for the continental US (CONUS) with multiple forecast horizons and time steps. Due to the output file sizes, these are normally not available for download more than a couple days at a time [2]. However, for a time a 40-day rolling window of these forecasts was maintained by HydroShare at RENCI [3], and a complete retrospective (August 2016 to the present) of the NWM Analysis & Assimilation outputs is maintained as well (contact help@cuahsi.org for access).

An archive of all NWM forecasts for the period Aug 18 to Sept 10, 2017 has been compiled at RENCI [4] [5], available as netCDF (.nc) files totaling 8TB. These can be browsed, subsetted, visualized, and downloaded (see [6] [7] [8]). In addition to these output files, we have uploaded to this HydroShare resource the input parameter files needed to re-run the NWM for the Harvey period, or for any time period covered by NWM v1.1 and 1.2 (August 2016 to this publication date in August 2018). These parameter files are also made available at [1].

See README for further details and usage guidance. Please see NOAA contacts listed on [1] for questions about the NWM data contents, structure and formats. Contact help@cuahsi.org if any questions about HydroShare-based tools and data access.

References [1] Overview of the NWM framework and output files [http://water.noaa.gov/about/nwm] [2] Free access to all National Water Model output for the most recent two days [http://water.noaa.gov/about/nwm - scroll down to links under "Downloading Output"] [3] NWM outputs for rolling 40-day window, maintained by HydroShare [link is no longer available] [4] Archived Harvey NWM outputs via RENCI THREDDS server [http://thredds.hydroshare.org/thredds/catalog/nwm/harvey/catalog.html] [link is no longer accessible] [5] RENCI is an Institute at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill [6] Live map for National Water Model forecasts [http://water.noaa.gov/map] [7] NWM Forecast Viewer app [no longer available] [8] CUAHSI JupyterHub example scripts for subsetting NWM output files [https://hydroshare.org/resource/3db192783bcb4599bab36d43fc3413db/] [9] WRF-Hydro Overview [https://ral.ucar.edu/projects/wrf_hydro/overview] [10] WRF-Hydro User Guide 2015 [https://ral.ucar.edu/sites/default/files/public/images/project/WRF_Hydro_User_Guide_v3.0.pdf]