The GEBCO_2019 Grid is a global continuous terrain model for ocean and land with a spatial resolution of 15 arc seconds. The grid uses as a ‘base’ Version 1 of the SRTM15_plus data set (Sandwell et al). This data set is a fusion of land topography with measured and estimated seafloor topography. It is largely based on version 11 of SRTM30_plus (5). Included on top of this base grid are gridded bathymetric data sets developed by the four Regional Centers of The Nippon Foundation-GEBCO Seabed 2030 Project, and from a number of international and national data repositories and regional mapping initiatives. The GEBCO_2019 Grid represents all data within the 2019 compilation. The compilation of the GEBCO_2019 Grid was carried out at the Seabed 2030 Global Center, hosted at the National Oceanography Centre, UK, with the aim of producing a seamless global terrain model. The majority of the compilation was done using the 'remove-restore' procedure (Smith and Sandwell, 1997; Becker, Sandwell and Smith, 2009 and Hell and Jakobsson, 2011). This is a two stage process of computing the difference between the new data and the ‘base’ grid and then gridding the difference and adding the difference back to the existing ‘base’ grid. The aim is to achieve a smooth transition between the 'new' and 'base' data sets with the minimum of perturbation of the existing base data set. The data sets supplied in the form of complete grids (primarily areas north of 60N and south of 50S) were included using feather blending techniques from GlobalMapper software. The GEBCO_2019 Grid has been developed through the Nippon Foundation-GEBCO Seabed 2030 Project. This is a collaborative project between the Nippon Foundation of Japan and the General Bathymetric Chart of the Oceans (GEBCO). It aims to bring together all available bathymetric data to produce the definitive map of the world ocean floor by 2030 and make it available to all. Funded by the Nippon Foundation, the four Seabed 2030 Regional Centers include the Southern Ocean - hosted at the Alfred Wegener Institute, Germany; South and West Pacific Ocean - hosted at the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, New Zealand; Atlantic and Indian Oceans - hosted at the Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University, USA; Arctic and North Pacific Oceans - hosted at Stockholm University, Sweden and the Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping at the University of New Hampshire, USA).

The General Bathymetric Chart of the Oceans (GEBCO) One Minute Grid is a global terrain model for land and sea at one arc-minute intervals. The grid is largely based on the bathymetric contours contained in the Centenary Edition of the GEBCO Digital Atlas, existing grids are used in some areas. The land areas are based on the Global Land One-km Base Elevation (GLOBE) Project data set. The grid was originally released in 2003 and updated in 2008 to include data from the International Bathymetric Chart of the Arctic Ocean (IBCAO), for the region north of 64N and also updates for shallower water regions off India, the Korean Peninsula and around South Afriaca, using data extracted from Electronic Navigation Charts (ENCs). The grid is available to download, in netCDF format, for free from the internet. Free software is available for viewing and accessing data from the grid in netCDF and ASCII. This includes an option to export the grid in an ASCII form suitable for conversion to an ESRI raster. The grid is also included in the GEBCO Digital Atlas DVD. It is not intended to make any further updates to this data set. In 2009, GEBCO released a new bathymetric grid, the GEBCO_08 Grid. This is a global terrain model at 30 arc-second intervals. It is largely based on a database of ship-track soundings with interpolation between soundings guided by satellite derived-gravity data.

The data set consists of digital bathymetric contours taken from the International Bathymetric Chart of the Mediterranean (IBCM) chart series. Most of the IBCM sheets depict contours at depths at 0m (coastline), 20m, 50m, 100m, and 200m, and at 200m intervals thereafter, although the actual contours displayed vary slightly from sheet to sheet. The data set is included in the GEBCO Digital Atlas (GDA). Through the GDA software interface the IBCM bathymetric contours can be exported in ASCII or shapefile format. The 10 sheets of the IBCM chart series are on a Mercator Projection at a scale of 1:1 million (at 38 N). The Black Sea is included at a scale of 1:2 million. The IBCM (1st Edition) chart series was published by the Head Department of Navigation and Oceanography of the USSR Ministry of Defence, St. Petersburg, under the auspices of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) of UNESCO 1981. The bathymetric contours and coastlines from the IBCM sheets were digitised. Error checking and quality control work on the data set was carried out at BODC. The digital data set was first made available in 1988.

The General Bathymetric Chart of the Oceans (GEBCO) Digital Atlas (GDA) contains global bathymetric data sets, consisting of the latest versions of GEBCO’s global gridded bathymetric data sets; global bathymetric contour and accompanying trackline control data sets; bathymetric contours and coastlines from the First Edition of the International Bathymetric Chart of the Mediterranean (IBCM); a set of digital global coastlines based on the World Vector Shoreline data set (coastlines south of 60S have been removed) at a range of scales from 1:43 million to 1:250,000; the SCAR coastline of Antarctica (version 3.0) at a range of scales from 1:30 million to 1:250,000; and a digital set of geographically referenced feature names including the International Hydrographic Organization (IHO)/Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) Gazetteer of Geographic Names of Undersea Features. The GEBCO dataset has global coverage and was first released in 1994. The contents of the GDA are updated periodically to include new versions of GEBCO’s bathymetric grids. The GDA is distributed on DVD and includes full documentation and a software interface for viewing and accessing the data sets.