FLOWIDER 1.0: a web-based interface to track flood-season water levels of large rivers of India’s Gangetic plains

Accessing and analysing flood-season water level data is crucial for monitoring riverine biodiversity and ecosystems. The Gangetic plains are among the largest river floodplains in the world. Temporal flood-season water level data for rivers of the Gangetic basin in India, though available in the public domain, are often scattered across web-based sources and recorded in non-translatable formats. We introduce ‘Flow and Water Level (FLOW) Integrated Datasets (ID) for Ecological studies of Rivers (ER)’, abbreviated as FLOWIDER 1.0, a web application developed using the R Shiny program. The app helps users track flood-season water level for 24 rivers and 107 gauging stations in one place, through a search filter by threatened species of wildlife. FLOWIDER presents a map view of gauging stations and graphing options to explore flood water-level time-series of up to two stations simultaneously. It features a searchable tool for users to access metadata linked with individual river stations.