Sample Data Sets

  • Stehekin Basin (vic.sample.stehekin.tgz): example of meteorological forcings, VIC parameters, routing model parameters, for learning to use VIC and the routing model.
  • Forcings and VIC parameters for the PILPS-2E experiment, Torne-Kalix basin, Sweden: pilps.tar
  • Forcings, VIC parameters, and observations of snow depth and soil moisture and temperatures for the Rosemount site, Illinois: RosemountTestSet.tgz.

VIC Input and Output Data Sets

Here are some notable input and output data sets for VIC. If you use these data sets, please cite the corresponding references.

Global Datasets

  • Global VIC Input Parameters at 0.5-Degree Resolution
    • NOTE: There are some grid cells in this dataset for which total soil depth exceeds the thermal damping depth of 4 meters. This causes VIC 4.1.2 (and later) to crash on those cells. The solution is to either increase the thermal damping depth (dp in the soil parameter file) to be >= total soil depth (= sum of layer depths 1, 2, 3). We are working on fixing this. For most users, this will not be a problem in their basins.
    • Spatial Resolution: 0.5-degree
    • Available data:
      • Soil Parameter File
      • Vegetation Parameter File
      • Vegetation Library File
      • Snowbands File
    • References: Nijssen et al. (2001b)
  • Global Meteorological Forcing Files at 0.5-Degree Resolution
  • Global Simulations at 2-Degree Resolution
    • Spatial Resolution: 2-degree
    • Temporal Resolution: daily
    • Time period: 1980-1993
    • Model Version: VIC 4.0.3
    • Simulation Mode: daily water balance
    • Available data:
      • Daily Meteorological Forcings (Precip, Tmax, Tmin, Wind, Vapor Pressure, Downward Shortwave, Net Longwave)
      • Daily Hydrologic Budget Terms (EvapoTranspiration, Runoff, Snow Water Equivalent, Soil Moisture Storage, Total Storage)
      • Maps of Gridded Parameters (Land/sea mask, depth of top 2 soil layers, total storage capacity)
    • References: Nijssen et al, 2001a,b,c
  • Global River Routing Networks at Various Resolutions
    • Spatial Resolution: 2-, 1-, 1/2-, 1/4-, 1/8-, and 1/16-degree
    • Coarser resolutions were upscaled from finer resolutions using DRT algorithm
    • Available data:
      • Grids of flow direction and flow accumulation
    • References: Wu et al., 2011

Continental US Datasets