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Mapping Flow‐Obstructing Structures on Global Rivers
Author(s) -
Yang Xiao,
Pavelsky Tamlin M.,
Ross Matthew R. V.,
JanuchowskiHartley Stephanie R.,
Dolan Wayana,
Altenau Elizabeth H.,
Belanger Michael,
Byron Danesha,
Durand Michael,
Van Dusen Ian,
Galit Hailey,
Jorissen Michiel,
Langhorst Theodore,
Lawton Eric,
Lynch Riley,
Mcquillan Katie Ann,
Pawar Sayali,
Whittemore Aaron
Publication year - 2022
Publication title -
water resources research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.863
H-Index - 217
eISSN - 1944-7973
pISSN - 0043-1397
DOI - 10.1029/2021wr030386
Subject(s) - hydrology (agriculture) , channel (broadcasting) , resource (disambiguation) , lock (firearm) , consistency (knowledge bases) , scale (ratio) , flow (mathematics) , computer science , environmental science , geography , cartography , geology , artificial intelligence , mathematics , geometry , geotechnical engineering , computer network , archaeology
To help store water, facilitate navigation, generate energy, mitigate floods, and support industrial and agricultural production, people have built and continue to build obstructions to natural flow in rivers. However, due to the long and complex history of constructing and removing such obstructions, we lack a globally consistent record of their locations and types. Here, we used a consistent method to visually locate and classify obstructions on 2.1 million km of large rivers (width ≥30 m) globally. We based our mapping on Google Earth Engine’s high resolution images, which for many places have meter‐scale resolution. The resulting Global River Obstruction Database (GROD) consists of 30,549 unique obstructions, covering six different obstruction types: dam, lock, low head dam, channel dam, and two types of partial dams. By classifying a subset of the obstructions multiple times, we are able to show high classification consistency (87% mean balanced accuracy) for the three types of obstructions that fully intersect rivers: dams, low head dams, and locks. The classification of the three types of partial obstructions are somewhat less consistent (61% mean balanced accuracy). Overall, by comparing GROD to similar datasets, we estimate GROD likely captured >90% of the obstructions on large rivers. We anticipate that GROD will be of wide interest to the hydrological modeling, aquatic ecology, geomorphology, and water resource management communities.