European water archive

Since the inception of EURO-FRIEND in 1985, the development and maintenance of a hydrological database has been pursued with high priority. The resultant European Water Archive (EWA) has become one of the most comprehensive hydrological archives in Europe. Until 2003, EWA was hosted by the CEH in Wallingford, UK. At that time, GRDC acted as regional data centre, responsible for the data acquisition from Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Czech Republic and Slovakia. In 2004, GRDC was charged with the complete data holding. Since then GRDC maintains EWA in support of the European FRIEND programme. Currently EWA contains long-term daily flow data and catchment information for more than 3700 river gauging stations in 29 countries. Data archived in the EWA have been supplied on a voluntary basis and free of charge by various data providers. EWA data are provided free of charge to EURO-FRIEND project members under conditions.