DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17769325
title: [CAMELS-CZ] Catchment Attributes and Meteorology for Large-Sample Studies -- Czechia

description: Summary

This dataset, CAMELS-CZ, extends the large-sample hydrology datasets CAMELS (Addor et al., 2017; Newman et al., 2015), and Caravan (Kratzert et al., 2023) to Czechia. CAMELS-CZ provides catchment attributes and meteorological time series for catchments in Czechia for the purpose of facilitating hydrological research and model development.

Data were collected and curated by the Czech Hydrometeorological Institute (CHMI), and are distribted here in the Caravan format ensuring compatibility with existing tools and workflows developed for CAMELS and Caravan. Much of the original data are available from the CHMI OpenData Portal.

Dataset Composition

This repository contains three distinct sub-datasets, each distributed in a separate ZIP file.

Caravan-Extension-CZ.zip (Direct Caravan Extension)

This dataset is a direct extension of the Caravan dataset. It includes daily meteorological forcings (e.g., precipitation, min/max temperature, solar radiation, vapor pressure) and daily streamflow. All meteorological data were derived from the ERA5-Land reanalysis using the Caravan GitHub repository. 

CAMELS-CZ.zip (Local Forcings)

This dataset is identical in structure to the direct Caravan extension except that it ALSO contains CHMI-derived precipitation and temperature data, along with data from the ERA5-Land reanalysis product. The source of the various data products are indicated by a suffix on the variable name. 

CAMELS-CZ-Hourly.zip (Hourly Data)

This dataset provides data at an hourly temporal resolution. It contains the same static catchment attributes as the other two datasets but includes hourly streamflow and hourly meteorological forcings (precipitation and temperature) from ERA5 and from the CHMI. Again, suffixes on the variable names indicate the source of each data product. The time period for this dataset is 2016 - 2025.

Data Format

All datasets adhere to the Caravan format specification. This format is designed to be consistent with the structure of other CAMELS datasets, facilitating ease of use and interoperability. The data is provided in both CSV and NetCDF formats. For detailed information on the format, including variable names and conventions, please refer to the Caravan dataset documentation.

File Structure

Each of the three ZIP files (Caravan-Extension-CZ.zip, CAMELS-CZ.zip, CAMELS-CZ-Hourly.zip) contains the same folder structure. Below is a representation of the directory layout within each zip archive:

.  ├── attributes/  │   └── camelscz/  │       ├── attributes\_hydroatlas\_camelscz.csv  │       ├── attributes\_caravan\_camelscz.csv  │       └── attributes\_other\_camelscz.csv  │  └── timeseries/      ├── csv/      │   └── camelscz/      │       ├── camelscz\_U4326000.csv      │       ├── camelscz\_P4204000.csv      │       └── ... (one file per basin)      │      └── netcdf/          └── camelscz/              ├── camelscz\_U4326000.nc              ├── camelscz\_P4204000.nc              └── ... (one file per basin)

How to Cite

When using this dataset, please cite it as:

Krejči, J. & Nearing, G. (2025). CAMELS-CZ: A catchment attributes and meteorology dataset for large-sample studies in Czechia [Dataset]. Zenodo. https://www.google.com/search?q=https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17593968.

Contact

For any questions or issues regarding the dataset, please contact either Jakub Krejči at jakub.krejci@chmi.cz or Grey Nearing at nearing@google.com.