Bathymetry Data for Oceans and Lake Victoria

Two bathymetry datasets are now in the Dataset API, covering global ocean and land terrain and water depth for Lake Victoria.

GEBCO_2025 is a global terrain model for ocean and land at 15 arc-second resolution, roughly 450 m at the equator, with elevation given in metres. LVBathy100 provides water depth for Lake Victoria at 100 m resolution, built from roughly 4 million depth points collected in a 2017 survey and interpolated using ordinary kriging.

Why water depth matters

Water depth is a required input wherever surface weather alone is not enough, for example in aquaculture siting, wave modelling and the thermal stratification of lakes.

What to expect from the data

Both datasets are static, so they carry no time dimension and do not update with the forecast cycle.