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Glaciers, Snow & Ice Data

Global Lakes and Wetlands Database (GLWD)

GLWD provides global polygonal lakes, reservoirs, and wetlands data at three detail levels from WWF and CIESIN.

Format Shapefile / ESRI Grid
Coverage Global
Resolution Lake and wetland polygons
License Free for research and education
Update Static archive (GLWD v1.0)
Download source Open official source

Format

Shapefile / ESRI Grid

Geometry

Polygon (water bodies)

Coverage

Global

Resolution

Lake and wetland polygons

About this dataset

Global polygonal dataset of lakes, reservoirs, rivers, and wetlands at three levels of detail from WWF and CIESIN.

The Global Lakes and Wetlands Database (GLWD) provides a comprehensive global classification of lakes, reservoirs, rivers, and wetlands at three levels of detail. GLWD-1 covers 3,067 large lakes and reservoirs (>0.1 km²), GLWD-2 covers 250,000+ smaller water bodies, and GLWD-3 covers wetland extents. It is the standard reference for global surface water feature mapping.

Limnology research Wetland conservation planning Hydrological modeling Biodiversity assessment

How to download

  1. 1 Open the Data Basin GLWD download page.
  2. 2 Select GLWD level of detail (Level 1-3).
  3. 3 Download the shapefile for global or regional coverage.
  4. 4 Open in QGIS and filter by water body type for targeted analysis.

Data Basin download

Download GLWD shapefiles

→

WWF GLWD page

Project documentation

→

FAQ

What is the difference between GLWD levels?

GLWD-1 covers ~3,000 large lakes and reservoirs, GLWD-2 covers 250,000+ smaller water bodies as polygons, and GLWD-3 provides global wetland extent at 30 arc-second resolution.

Is GLWD still current?

GLWD v1.0 is a static product based on 1990s-2000s baseline data. For recent water body dynamics, use JRC Global Surface Water or satellite-based datasets.