CAMELS-CZ: a hydro-meteorological time series and attributes database for 453 catchments in Czechia

Hydrological methods that analyse data from a large sample of catchments with diverse characteristics (large-sample hydrology; comparative hydrology) enable a comprehensive analysis of the hydrological regime and a description of hydrological variability and change in the components of the water balance. Comparative hydrology is better suited for examining the differences and similarities between river basins, thereby supporting their classification and regionalisation. Furthermore, hydrological models significantly streamline the processing of large sets of river basins.

We present CAMELS-CZ (Catchment Attributes and MEteorology for Large-sample Studies – Czechia), a database of catchment attributes for 453 catchments within Czechia, serving as a reference data platform for analysis and modelling using a large sample of catchments. The database provides catchment attributes, as well as hydrological and meteorological time series, in a comparable structure to other existing CAMELS products. The database includes catchments for which daily runoff data are available for at least 15 years. Catchment area ranges from 2 km² to 10,000 km² and covers a variety of elevations (200–1,600 m a.s.l.) and runoff regimes (from pluvial to nival-pluvial). Observed time series include runoff, precipitation, air temperature, potential evapotranspiration, and snow water equivalent. In addition to the observed data, the CAMELS-CZ time series was supplemented with simulated data of individual components of the water balance using a semi-distributed bucket-type HBV model. The model was calibrated against observed runoff and snow water equivalent. Simulated time series enable a more detailed assessment of the individual components of the water cycle.