U.S. Department of the Interior U.S. Geological Survey The CRUISE tool - An interactive, GIS-based application to estimate continuous, unimpacted daily streamflow at ungaged locations in the Connecticut River Basin Stacey Archfield Peter Steeves John Guthrie Kernell Ries Source: The Connecticut River looking north in the early evening, from the French King Bridge at the Erving-Gill town line in Western Massachusetts. With support from:

2 of 11 Objectives  Develop an easy-to-use, screening-level tool to estimate continuous unimpacted streamflow at ungaged locations in the Connecticut River basin (excluding the mainstem of the Connecticut River) POINT-AND-CLICK GIS USER- INTERFACE COUPLED WITH MICROSOFT EXCEL SPREADSHEET APPROACH REQUIRES SIMPLIFYING ASSUMPTIONS AND FEW PARAMETERS  Existing tools to estimate daily, unregulated and water-use adjusted streamflow in southern New England had already been developed [Archfield et al., 2010 and Archfield and Vogel, 2010] (aka MA SYE)  This project leverages these existing methods to create the CRUISE tool, which provides estimates of daily, unregulated streamflow across the entire Connecticut River Basin. The Connecticut River UnImpacted Streamflow Estimation (CRUISE) tool

3 of 11 Estimate flow- duration curve EXCEEDENCE PROBABILITY STREAMFLOW TIME Area = XX.X mi 2 Estimate basin characteristics Solve the regression equations ln(Q50) = a 1 + b 1 * (ln(Area)) Obtain flow series from reference gage Method to estimate daily streamflow Archfield et al. [in review]; Shu and Ourda [2011]; Archfield et al. [2010]; Mohamoud [2008] STREAMFLOW

4 of 11 Utility of the method to estimate daily streamflows

5 of 11 The Connecticut River Basin UnImpacted Flows tool Locate and select stream reach of interest Begin with an overview of the entire basin Test site available at:

6 of 11 The Connecticut River Basin Unimpacted Flows Tool The user can export a shapefile of the delineated basin and obtain the basin characteristics needed to calculate daily streamflow Basin is delineated Basin characteristics are computed and summarized The spreadsheet program uses the basin characteristics to complete the calculation of daily streamflow This process balances the flexibility needed to customize the tool to meet the user needs while removing the complex desktop setup process and problems encountered due to version control.

7 of 11 Demonstration of the CRUISE tool CRUISE website Clark Brook near Buckland, MA Latitude: Longitude:

8 of 11 Application of the CRUISE tool  The CRUISE tool was applied to approximately 300 stream locations in the Connecticut River Basin.  These locations were dam locations and/or nodes of ecological interest.  Streamflow data at these nodes are being used in simulation and optimization models of the basin.  Streamflow data is available through the Army Corps of Engineers DSS software Searsburg Dam

9 of 11 Accessing the node data Shapefile containing the node locations and names (in Massachusetts State Plane) CRUISE from USGS dss Connecticut - Unregulated Flows - ResSim dss

10 of 11 Accessing the node data - DSS Connecticut - Unregulated Flows - ResSim dss

11 of 11 Contact Information Stacey Archfield Massachusetts-Rhode Island WSC (508) Products  CRUISE Website, software tool and user manual  Journal manuscript under revision  Three presentations at technical conferences Please note that streamflows estimated by the CRUISE tool are considered provisional until formal approval by the U.S. Geological Survey.