What is it and how can it be used?
The Catchment Characterisation and Modelling (CCM) is a geographic database containing rivers and watersheds of Europe from the Atlantic ocean to the Ural mountains.
The tool, developed by the Commission's Joint Research Centre, can be used to study cause-effect relationships of environmental processes where river networks or drainage basins (catchments) play an important role.
The technology behind the tool
The database is in part generated automatically from high resolution (100 by 100 meters) elevation models. An algorithm searches for the lowest pixel until it reaches the sea.
While traditional maps are of variable quality depending on national guidelines and applications, this methodology results on digitised rivers os similar quality throughout the whole continent and its surrounding islands.
Additionally, rivers are digitised with a direction of flow which allows to integrate the riversegments into flow models.
Moreover, the system allows for the unique identification of any hydrological object with a unique code based on the location of the feature in the hydrological system. From the code one can, for example, read whether an object is upstream or downstream of another object. This is useful for setting up monitoring networks of water quality or quantity.
CCM river and catchment database: versions
Version 1.0 of CCM was published in 2003. In July 2007 an geographically extended and substantially improved CCM Version 2.0 was released.
The current version 2.1 of July 2008 is an update of version 2.0 wich includes the correction of noted errors as well additional functionality.
CCM river and catchment database: version 2.1 (CCM2)
The CCM2 database covers the entire European continent, including the Atlantic islands, Iceland, Cyprus and Türkiye. It includes a hierarchical set of river segments and catchments based on the Strahler order, a lake layer and structured hydrological feature codes based on the Pfafstetter system.
CCM data are made freely available for non-commercial use.
The CCM data are organised in so called data windows and available in 2 different projection systems. Each window includes river basins, catchments and rivers for the window area.
Lakes and river basins for the whole CCM2 area are further provided in separate datasets. The river basin dataset includes a set of codes, which together with the Pfafstetter hydrological feature codes provided in the window data represent a unique and structured hydrological feature code per primary catchment and/or river reach throughout the CCM2 area.
Also rivernames are included in this dataset. The lakes dataset contains also a set of ordered coastlines.
Data are provided free of charge for non-commercial use. They are provided as is, using ESRI Geodatabase format of 2008. This format can be read by most geographic information systems.
Equal Area Projection (Lambert LAEA)
Covering the Northern European Plain, Large parts of Germany, Denmark, Poland & Lithuania
Covering Western Islands, United Kingdom and Ireland
Covering Italian Peninsula and Adriatic coast
Covering the Western part of Europe, mainly France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Netherlands and adjacent Germany
Covering the Iberian Peninsula and adjacent islands
Covering the large Danube riverbasin including most of the Northern Balkan peninsula
Covering the Dnjepr basin and adjacent basins in Moldova, Belarus, parts of Romania & Ukraine
Covering Finland, Estonia, Latvia and parts of North Western Russia
Covering the Scandinavian Peninsula containing Norway and most of Sweden
Covering the Southern Balkan peninsula and Anatolia, with Greece, Albania most of Turkey and Cyprus
Covering Madeira and Canary Islands
Covering Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Southern Russia and coastal parts of Türkiye
Covering the Ural river basin in Southern Russia and western Kazakhstan
Covering the largest basin in Europe; the Volga and adjacent basins in Russia
Covering only the Azores archipelago
Covering the Shetland- and Faeroe islands
Covering the Euphrates and Tigris watersheds covering the Northern Middle East
Covering Iceland
Riverbasins also called Seaoutlets of the whole database.
Containing all freshwater objects of the Continent and its surrounding islands, detected with Satellite imagery if not available in Corine Landcover or submitted by European member-states in 2003
WGS 84 Dataset
Covering the Northern European Plain, Large parts of Germany, Denmark, Poland & Lithuania
Covering Western Islands, United Kingdom and Ireland
Covering Italian Peninsula and Adriatic coast
Covering the Western part of Europe, mainly France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Netherlands and adjacent Germany
Covering the Iberian Peninsula and adjacent islands
Covering the large Danube riverbasin including most of the Northern Balkan peninsula
Covering the Dnjepr basin and adjacent basins in Moldova, Belarus, parts of Romania & Ukraine
Covering Finland, Estonia, Latvia and parts of North Western Russia
Covering the Scandinavian Peninsula containing Norway and most of Sweden
Covering the Southern Balkan peninsula and Anatolia, with Greece, Albania most of Turkey and Cyprus
Covering Madeira and Canary Islands
Covering Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Southern Russia and coastal parts of Türkiye
Covering the Ural river basin in Southern Russia and western Kazakhstan
Covering the largest basin in Europe; the Volga and adjacent basins in Russia
Covering only the Azores archipelago
Covering the Shetland- and Faeroe islands
Covering the Euphrates and Tigris watersheds covering the Northern Middle East
Covering Iceland
Containing all Riverbasins, also called Seaoutlets of Europe
Containing all surface freshwater bodies of the Continent and its surrounding islands, using satellite data if data from Corine Landcover or data submitted by Member States in 2005 were not submitted
Read more on CCM
For more information on the development and characteristics of the CCM2 database see:
- de Jager, A.L., Vogt, J.V. (2010). Development and demonstration of a structured hydrological feature coding system for Europe , Hydrological Sciences Journal, 55, 5, 661, Taylor and Francis (Internet Access)
- Vogt, J.V. et al. (2007). A pan-European River and Catchment Database. EC-JRC (Report EUR 22920 EN) Luxembourg, 120 p. (PDF standard - 9.8 MB) (PDF high quality print - 37.0 MB)
- Vogt, J.V. et al. (2007). Developing a pan-European Data Base of Drainage Networks and Catchment Boundaries from a 100 Meter DEM. Proceedings AGILE International Conference, May 2007. (PDF standard - 0.5 MB)
- Vogt, J.V., E. Rimaviciute, A de Jager (2008). CCM 2.1 Release Notes. (PDF standard)
