Global Runoff Data Centre, Federal Institute of Hydrology (Germany)
Global Runoff Database
The largest international archive of river discharge observations, holding daily and monthly mean discharge for tens of thousands of gauging stations contributed by national hydrological services.
Rights
- Licence
- Publisher agreement required
- Commercial reuse
- No
- Redistribution
- No
- Derivative use
- Not clearly stated
- Attribution required
- YesData from Global Runoff Data Centre, Federal Institute of Hydrology (Germany), used under Publisher agreement required.
- Restrictions
- Data are supplied on request under terms set by the contributing national services. Redistribution of station data is generally not permitted, and use is typically limited to research and non-commercial purposes.
- Terms last checked
- 23 August 2026
Access and coverage
- Publisher
- Global Runoff Data Centre, Federal Institute of Hydrology (Germany)
- Website
- https://grdc.bafg.de/
- Geographic coverage
- Global — 10,000+ gauging stations
- Temporal coverage
- 1806 onwards
- Update frequency
- irregular
- Formats
- csv, zip
- Bulk download
- Not available
- Registration required
- Yes
- Cost to Hydrionis
- Free
- Domains
- river flow
Notes
A good example of a highly valuable but restricted source. Hydrionis records its existence and coverage, and instead draws river flow from national open portals such as the UK National River Flow Archive and USGS NWIS.