Abstract Summary
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The Caravan large-sample hydrology dataset was created to standardize and harmonize streamflow data by combining regional datasets with global meteorological forcing and catchment attributes.
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An extension to the Caravan dataset enriched the meteorological forcing data by incorporating three precipitation nowcast products and three weather forecast products, enabling more robust evaluation of hydrological models, especially for real-time forecasting scenarios.
Abstract
The Caravan large-sample hydrology dataset (Kratzert et al., 2023) was created to standardize and harmonize streamflow data from various regional datasets, combined with globally available meteorological forcing and catchment attributes. This community-driven project also allows researchers to conveniently extend the dataset for additional basins, as done 6 times to date (see this https URL). We present a novel extension to Caravan, focusing on enriching the meteorological forcing data. Our extension adds three precipitation nowcast products (CPC, IMERG v07 Early, and CHIRPS) and three weather forecast products (ECMWF IFS HRES, GraphCast, and CHIRPS-GEFS) to the existing ERA5-Land reanalysis data. The inclusion of diverse data sources, particularly weather forecasts, enables more robust evaluation and benchmarking of hydrological models, especially for real-time forecasting scenarios. To the best of our knowledge, this extension makes Caravan the first large-sample hydrology dataset to incorporate weather forecast data, significantly enhancing its capabilities and fostering advancements in hydrological research, benchmarking, and real-time hydrologic forecasting. The data is publicly available under a CC-BY-4.0 license on Zenodo in two parts (this https URL, this https URL) and on Google Cloud Platform (GCP) - see more under the Data Availability chapter.