Icosahedral Snyder Equal Area DGGs-based Flow Routing Datasets for the Amazon Basin
Discrete Global Grid systems (DGGs) are emerging spatial data structures widely used to organize geospatial datasets across scales. Although DGGs were used in many disciplines, including Geographic Information System (GIS), hydrology, and ecology, few studies have used DGGs in spatially distributed hydrologic models, mainly because flow-routing datasets based on DGGs are unavailable. This study breaks new ground by developing flow routing datasets using the Icosahedral Snyder Equal Area (ISEA) DGGs and our newly developed mesh-independent flow direction model. We applied our method to the Amazon Basin, whose health and biodiversity largely depend on its water cycle. The outcomes underscore the potential of these DGGs-based datasets to enhance hydrologic model performance in hydrologic and ESMs.