Spatial Data for Freshwater Conservation Planning
Explore spatial data and tools for freshwater conservation planning, including resources for mapping rivers, wetlands and watersheds. This overview helps spatial analysts and conservation planners assess global datasets, hydrographic models and other spatial resources that support watershed analysis and biodiversity conservation.
Subject Tags
- Conservation Planning
- Wetlands
- Rivers
Overview
This resource provides an overview of spatial data and tools available to support freshwater focused spatial conservation planning. Designed for spatial analysts and conservation planners, it addresses regions where rivers, wetlands and watersheds have not been mapped at scales or in formats suitable for watershed analysis. The document describes approaches for mapping freshwater ecosystem types, species distributions, ecological connectivity, freshwater condition, existing protections and future threats. It reviews global datasets, hydrographic models and cartographic resources for rivers, wetlands and watersheds, including HydroSHEDS, HydroATLAS, RiverATLAS, BasinATLAS, LakesATLAS, GloRiC and MERIT Hydro. The resource also discusses considerations for choosing global datasets or developing finer scale hydrographic data based on planning objectives, timelines and technical capacity to support freshwater biodiversity conservation.