Simbi: historical hydro-meteorological time series and signatures for 24 catchments in Haiti

Abstract

Abstract. The Caribbean country of Haiti is highly exposed to hydroclimatic hazards. However, there is no usable database that is easily accessible to the scientific community for this area. To fill this gap, hydroclimatic data were collected to create the first historical database in Haiti. This database, called "Simbi" (guardian of rivers, freshwater, and rain in Haitian mythology), includes 156 monthly rainfall series over the period 1905–2005, 59 daily rainfall series over the period 1920–1940, 70 daily streamflow series, and 23 monthly temperature series, not necessarily continuous, over the period 1920–1940. It also provides simulated streamflow series over the period 1920–1940 using the GR2M and GR4J rainfall–runoff models for 24 catchments and 48 attributes covering a wide range of topographic, climatic, geological, land use, hydrogeological, and hydrological signature indices. The database will be regularly updated to include additional historical data that will be digitized in the future. It will thus contribute toward better knowledge of the hydrology of Haitian catchments and will enable the implementation of various hydrological calculations useful for designing structures or flow forecasting. Simbi is an open access database and is available for download at: https://doi.org/10.23708/02POK6 (Bathelemy et al., 2023).