A global open-source database of flood-protection levees on river deltas (openDELvE)

Abstract

Flood-protection levees have been built along rivers and coastlines globally. Current datasets, however, are generally confined to territorial boundaries (national datasets) and are not always easily accessible, posing limitations for hydrologic models and assessments of flood hazard. Here we present our work to develop a single, open-source global river delta levee data environment (openDELvE) which aims to bridge a data deficiency by collecting and standardising global flood-protection levee data for river deltas. In openDELvE we have aggregated data from national databases as well as data stored in reports, maps, and satellite imagery. The database identifies the river delta land areas that the levees have been designed to protect, and where additional data is available, we record the extent and design specifications of the levees themselves (e.g., levee height, crest width, construction material) in a harmonised format. openDELvE currently contains 5,089 km of levees on deltas, and 44,733.505 km2 of leveed area in 1,601 polygons. For the 152 deltas included in openDELvE, on average 19 % of their habitable land area is confined by verifiable flood-protection levees. Globally, we estimate that between 5 % and 54 % of all delta land is confined by flood-protection levees. The data is aligned to the recent standards of Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability and Reuse of scientific data (FAIR) and is open-source. openDELvE is made public on an interactive platform (www.opendelve.eu), which includes a community-driven revision tool to encourage inclusion of new levee data and continuous improvement and refinement of open-source levee data.