Danube River, Copernicus Sentinel data. | Foto: ESA
The dataset was presented in the journal “Earth System Science Data” and is accessible via the website of IGB. It facilitates large-scale biogeographic analyses in the freshwater realm, including modeling the distribution of freshwater species.
“The high resolution and global coverage of the data enable researchers to precisely analyze environmental conditions in freshwater habitats and make spatially detailed predictions about species’ suitable habitats”, said Jaime R. García-Márquez, lead author of the study from the IGB.
Environment90m comprises 106 environmental variables for 726 million sub-basins worldwide, including 45 variables related to topography and hydrography, 19 climate variables for the observation period 1981–2010, as well as projections for the periods 2041–2070 and 2071–2100. It also includes 22 land cover categories for the annual time-series data from 1992 to 2020, 15 soil variables, and information on aridity and modeled streamflow. The database is also seamlessly linked to the Hydrography90m dataset, which provides detailed river networks.
The article provides examples, such as habitat suitability for fish in the Danube basin and the environmental characterisation of lake headwaters, to demonstrate how Environment90m can be utilised. “Since the data can be extensive at high resolutions and large spatial scales, we have outlined the workflow for various research approaches in our publication”, said Dr Sami Domisch, an IGB researcher who initiated the dataset.
