Description: All HydroBASINS layers were derived from World Wildlife Fund’s HydroSHEDS data based on a grid resolution of 15 arc-seconds (approximately 500 m at the equator). Watersheds were delineated in a consistent manner at different scales, and a hierarchical sub-basin breakdown was created following the topological concept of the Pfafstetter coding system. The resulting polygon layers are termed HydroBASINS and represent a subset of the HydroSHEDS database. This shapefile contains (sub-)basin polygons for South America at Pfafstetter level 5.
Copyright Text: The HydroBASINS product has been developed on behalf of World Wildlife Fund US (WWF), with support and in collaboration with the EU BioFresh project, Berlin, Germany; the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), Cambridge, UK; and McGill University, Montreal, Canada. We kindly ask users to cite HydroBASINS in any published material produced using the data. If possible, online links to the HydroSHEDS website (http://www.hydrosheds.org) should be provided. Citations and acknowledgements of the HydroBASINS data should be made as follows: Lehner, B., Grill G. (2013): Global river hydrography and network routing: baseline data and new approaches to study the world’s large river systems. Hydrological Processes, 27(15): 2171–2186. Data is available at www.hydrosheds.org.