MSAIRHD: Mainland Southeast Asia International River Upper Reach Hydrological Dataset, 1958–1987
- 1College of Soil and Water Conservation, Southwest Forestry University, Kunming, Yunnan 650224 China
Abstract
Southeast Asia’s international rivers sustain the livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people and represent globally important biodiversity hotspots and ecologically sensitive regions. The scarcity of hydrological station data has constrained our understanding of long-term hydrological evolution, water cycle dynamics, and hydrological modelling in these basins. Here, we present a compilation of historical daily records of streamflow (87 stations), sediment concentration (40 stations), and water level (118 stations) in the upper reaches of the Irrawaddy, Salween, Mekong, and Red River basins for the period 1958–1987. Based on these records, we derived 74 hydrological indices. For streamflow, data were available from 12 stations in the Irrawaddy basin (mean record length 23 years), 13 in the Salween basin (18.8 years), 34 in the Mekong basin (21.1 years), and 28 in the Red River basin (23.3 years). Water level records covered 14 Irrawaddy stations (mean 20.92 years), 20 Salween stations (15.57 years), 48 Mekong stations (18.75 years), and 35 Red River stations (19.68 years). Sediment concentration data were available for 5 Irrawaddy stations (mean 13 years), 7 Salween stations (15.85 years), 16 Mekong stations (14.37 years), and 12 Red River stations (17.25 years). Overall, water level stations are the most numerous across the four basins, whereas sediment concentration stations are the fewest. The derived hydrological indices are crucial for elucidating the historical hydrological evolution of the upper Irrawaddy, Salween, Mekong, and Red River basins. In addition, these data provide valuable support for interdisciplinary studies of transboundary river environments, hydrology, ecology, and natural flow reconstruction, and for calibrating and validating numerical models. This dataset fills a key gap in large-sample global hydrological studies by improving the representation of this previously underrepresented region.
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BibTeX
@article{cheng2026msairhd,
title = {{MSAIRHD: Mainland Southeast Asia International River Upper Reach Hydrological Dataset, 1958–1987}},
author = {Qingping Cheng and Xuefu Pu and Zhenzhou Zhang},
journal = {Scientific Data},
year = {2026},
month = jul,
doi = {10.1038/s41597-026-07860-6},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-026-07860-6},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - MSAIRHD: Mainland Southeast Asia International River Upper Reach Hydrological Dataset, 1958–1987
AU - Qingping Cheng
AU - Xuefu Pu
AU - Zhenzhou Zhang
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/07/11
JO - Scientific Data
DO - 10.1038/s41597-026-07860-6
UR - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-026-07860-6
AB - Southeast Asia’s international rivers sustain the livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people and represent globally important biodiversity hotspots and ecologically sensitive regions. The scarcity of hydrological station data has constrained our understanding of long-term hydrological evolution, water cycle dynamics, and hydrological modelling in these basins. Here, we present a compilation of historical daily records of streamflow (87 stations), sediment concentration (40 stations), and water level (118 stations) in the upper reaches of the Irrawaddy, Salween, Mekong, and Red River basins for the period 1958–1987. Based on these records, we derived 74 hydrological indices. For streamflow, data were available from 12 stations in the Irrawaddy basin (mean record length 23 years), 13 in the Salween basin (18.8 years), 34 in the Mekong basin (21.1 years), and 28 in the Red River basin (23.3 years). Water level records covered 14 Irrawaddy stations (mean 20.92 years), 20 Salween stations (15.57 years), 48 Mekong stations (18.75 years), and 35 Red River stations (19.68 years). Sediment concentration data were available for 5 Irrawaddy stations (mean 13 years), 7 Salween stations (15.85 years), 16 Mekong stations (14.37 years), and 12 Red River stations (17.25 years). Overall, water level stations are the most numerous across the four basins, whereas sediment concentration stations are the fewest. The derived hydrological indices are crucial for elucidating the historical hydrological evolution of the upper Irrawaddy, Salween, Mekong, and Red River basins. In addition, these data provide valuable support for interdisciplinary studies of transboundary river environments, hydrology, ecology, and natural flow reconstruction, and for calibrating and validating numerical models. This dataset fills a key gap in large-sample global hydrological studies by improving the representation of this previously underrepresented region.
SN - 2052-4463
ER -