Transboundary Freshwater Spatial Database
The Transboundary Freshwater Spatial Database contains physical, socioeconomic, and political data relating to the world's international river basins (which is synonymous with watershed and catchment). First and foremost, this spatial database contains the delineations of the world's international river basins and their associated basin country units, which are the area of a particular basin in a certain country. By breaking down the international river basins into BCUs - basin country units - we are able to understand how landcover, precipitation, population, withdrawal, consumption, and more vary between countries all within the same international river basin. These data help us, in the PWCMT at OSU and other researchers worldwide, to manage our shared waters and to promote cooperation over them.
The 2024 Spatial Database update identifies 313 international river basins, which is defined as having two general characteristics:
- system of surface and hydrologically connected groundwater flowing to a common terminus
- perennial (year-round) flow crossing or following an international political boundary
The river basin, then, is the area that can be extrapolated as area of land that drains waters to the common terminus, which is an ocean, sea, or terminal inland water body. For more information about the 2018 update, which cites 310 basins, please see the following paper:
- McCracken, M. and Wolf, A.T. Updating the register of international river basins of the world. International Journal of Water Resources Development. Accepted Online: 29 March 2019.
The update and maintenance of this database would not be possible without contributions of fellow researchers. If you have any new data, statistics, or information relevant to the spatial database that should be included, please let us know.
Transboundary Freshwater Diplomacy Database Explorer
The TFDD Explorer is a new engaging tool produced in collaboration with OSU Valley Library that enables users to easily explore physical and institutional data on the world’s international river basins and access qualitative and tabular data on treaties (including full-text downloads), river basin organizations, and conflict-cooperation events. You can also explore maps at the scale of the basin, basin-country unit, or country, to access quick information about the international freshwater treaties, river basin organizations, water-related conflict and cooperation events, wetland area, and groundwaters associated with each scale. Also available are data on population, water consumption, water withdrawal, runoff, climate classifications, and existing and planned dams.
Data to Download
The GIS shapefiles and attribute data as part of the 2024 and 2018 Updates of the Transboundary Freshwater Spatial Database is available for download and use, please see the note on data use below.
- 313 International River Basins - 2024 Update: This contains a zip file with two shapefiles: 1) international river basins and 2) basin country units and the codebook. Both contain, in their attribute tables, tabular data associated with each basin or BCU. The attribute data is a work in progress and may be updated a few times a year.
- TFDD Interactive Map - This geovisualization was created by Hannah Friedrich, Giovanni Svevo, and Alex Walters, graduate students at OSU. It presents delineations of 310 international river basins, their BCUs, biophysical, social, and political data in both searchable map and tabular formats. It also hosts new visualizations for the International Events Database and the International Freshwater Treaties Database.
- 286 International River Basins - 2016 TWAP Update: This contains a zip file with one shapefile of the basin country units for the 286 international river basins and attribute data associated with each basin. For additional attribute data and indicators calculated as part of the TWAP Assessment, visit the TWAP Data Portal.
Note on Data Use
Wide use of electronic and hardcopy versions of data, GIS coverages, and findings produced by the Transboundary Freshwater Diplomacy Database (TFDD) project is encouraged. The data, coverages, and findings are not copyrighted, although due credit is appreciated. Please attach this credit when citing TFDD products:
“Product of the Transboundary Freshwater Diplomacy Database, College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences, Oregon State University. Additional information about the TFDD can be found at: http://transboundarywaters.science.oregonstate.edu.”
If the product is to be used on the web, a hot link to the above address would be appreciated.