Water quality dataset in China

Abstract. Water data is a crucial asset for sustainable water resource management. However, the availability of China’s water datasets lags far behind modern expectations for open geoscientific data. This dataset is a part of the China Water Data Archive (CWDA), an upcoming national collection of water-related data covering all aspects of water data for boosting data sharing in China. The CWDA aims at providing free, clean, non-sensitive, coherent, and reliable water data within China for global researchers to support the national and global water resources management and the United Nations-Water Integrated Monitoring Initiative for Sustainable Development Goals 6 and 14. In this paper, we used Python and R language to collect, tidy, reorganize, and curate the publicly available inland and coastal/ocean surface water quality data in China, following a series of data quality dimensions (integrity, completeness, consistency, and accuracy). As the most comprehensive, publicly available, handy, and clean water quality dataset in China so far, it included water quality data for daily, weekly, and monthly in the period of 1980–2022, with 17 indicators for over 330,000 observations at 2384 sites from inland to coastal/ocean areas. This dataset will greatly support works relevant to the assessment, modelling, and projection of water quality, ocean biomass, and biodiversity in China.