The dataset reflects the spatial delineation of river catchments in the Baltic Sea drainage area. The data is based on the reporting by Contracting Parties within in the HELCOM Pollution Load Compilation (PLC) framework. The catchments consist of monitored river catchments and unmonitored coastal areas. The delineation of the catchments can be connected to the flow and nitrogen and phosphorous load information available in the Baltic Sea Environmental Fact Sheet (BSEFS) assessment data set ( https://metadata.helcom.fi/geonetwork/srv/eng/catalog.search#/metadata/441f878f-67e7-4aa8-927e-8f5e073dc893).

The river catchments consist of whole rivers, meaning that although a river would run through several countries or would be a border river between two countries, the catchment is not split into separate sub-catchments. The unmonitored areas are aggregated based on PLC subbasins and country areas, thus forming areas such as the unmonitored area of Finnish Gulf of Finland, Polish Baltic Proper or Danish Kattegat.

Attribute information:

SourceCode: Unique code for river catchment

Name: Name of river catchment

SubBasin: The PLC subbasin where the river meets the sea.

Country: The Country on which territory the river mouth is located, for border rivers both are mentioned.

Monitoring: The monitoring status of the river (M=monitored and U=unmonitored). Marked as monitored only if it’s been monitored for the whole time series.

Transbound: Listing all countries that have the rivers drainage area on its territory.

Area_km2: The total area of the catchment in square kilometers.