A Global-Scale Time Series Dataset for Groundwater Studies within the Earth System
Groundwater is a central component of the Earth system. However, our understanding of how it is dynamically interlinked with the atmosphere, hydrosphere, cryosphere, biosphere, geosphere, and anthroposphere remains limited. In the pursuit of understanding groundwater dynamics across diverse global settings, we present GROW (the global-scale integrated GROundWater package). This analysis-ready, quality-controlled dataset combines depth to groundwater and level time series from 55 countries, 91% from North America, India, Europe, and Australia, with associated Earth system variables. The dataset contains >200,000 time series with either daily, monthly, or yearly temporal resolution, accompanied by 36 time series or static attributes of meteorological, hydrological, geophysical, vegetation, and anthropogenic variables (e.g., precipitation, drainage density, rock type, NDVI, land use). 34 data flags regarding well features (e.g., coordinates and country), as well as time series characteristics (e.g., gap fraction or autocorrelation), facilitate quick data filtering. GROW provides a foundation for understanding large-scale groundwater processes in space and time, as well as for calibrating and evaluating models that simulate groundwater dynamics within the Earth system.
Authors
- Raoul Collenteur (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7843-1538)
- Sebastian Gnann (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9797-5204)
- Xander Huggins (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6313-8299)
- Gunnar Lischeid (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3700-6062)
- Claudia Ruz Vargas (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4698-3685)
- Yoshihide Wada (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4770-2539)
- Robert Reinecke (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5699-8584)
- Andreas Hartmann (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0407-742X)
- Inge de Graaf (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7748-868X)
- Annemarie Bäthge
- Jan H. Fleckenstein
- Mark O Cuthbert
- Nils Moosdorf
- Martina Flörke
- Thorsten Wagener
Institutions
- Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (DE)
- Stockholm Resilience Centre (SE)
- University of British Columbia (CA)
- University of Freiburg (DE)
- Stockholm University (SE)
- University of Potsdam (DE)
- Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (DE)
- Princeton University (US)
- Leibniz Centre for Tropical Marine Research (DE)
- Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel (DE)
- Groundwater Center (DE)
- Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (DE)
- IGRAC
- Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (CH)
- King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (SA)
- Cardiff University (GB)
- Ruhr University Bochum (DE)
- Wageningen University & Research (NL)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Scientific Data
- Published
- 2026-03-09
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-026-06966-1
- Primary Topic
- Geophysics and Gravity Measurements
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00
Funders
- Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung
- European Commission
- Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung