Gary Darling - GISP Office of the State CIO Acting Deputy Geographic Information Officer Melody Baldwin Division of Flood Management JOC –FOC GIS Unit

National Hydrography Dataset Drew Decker USGS Geospatial Liaison for California Carol Ostergren USGS Geospatial Liaison for California Watershed Boundary Dataset Lorri Peltz-Lewis, WBD State Coordinator CA & NV Donna Knifong USGS, GIS Specialist

 Introduction – Gary Darling, Melody Baldwin  National Hydrography Dataset (NHD)  Brief History  Why use the NHD Common Operating System/Common Data  What is the NHD Current Structure  Units, Scale, Features  Watershed Boundary Dataset (WBD)  History of Watershed Data in California  California Interagency Watershed Mapping (CalWater 2.2.1) vs. WBD  Where, How to access Sources External DWR Internal

 California stewardship for the National Hydrography dataset NHD now at a crossroads  At this point there is no formal steward for the NHD

 There are four reasonable stewardship options:  Department of water resources DWR  The water boards (SWRCB)  The office of the CIO (OCIO)  A consortium approach

 New technologies are making more and better water data available  Increases in information allow us to better manage water resources  Policy makers have become aware of the value of information for decision making  Newly enacted resources management strategies are data intensive…

 Simitian SB 7X 1  "Adaptive management" means a framework and flexible decision making process for ongoing knowledge acquisition, monitoring, and evaluation leading to continuous improvement in management planning…”  Steinberg SB 7X 3  “… increase opportunities for groundwater recharge and optimization of groundwater supplies.”

 Data intensive strategies to work better if you actually have data  We need to create an interagency data gathering process  You are more likely to reach the same conclusions from data analysis you start with the same information  We need to pick an authoritative source for shared datasets  For multi-agency decision making to be effective information needs to be shared between agencies within the State and between different levels of government.  Datasets once created need to be maintained and effectively shared

 Federal financial support makes the NHD the only cost effective hydrology data set.  Once posted to the NHD all Federal agencies accept the posted NHD data as truth  NHD has a high rate of acceptance in local government  For adaptive management policies to enacted some sort of common hydrography layer needs to be established.

 All agencies working from the same dataset  Focus on project and not on dataset being used for the project  Metadata for dataset  Regular updates and enhancements

 A Map  Spatial representation of hydrographic features, originating from digitization of topographic hydrologic lines  A Network  Interconnections between features  A Model  A systematic way to link data, visualize relationships, and make decisions  A Standard  Nationally consistent data

 Joint USGS/EPA standard  Available at 1:100,000 (medium), 1:24,000 (large), and >1:24,000 (local) scales  Contains surface water features including streams and rivers, ponds, lakes, canals, wetlands, and springs  Features linked to EPA reach code database  Data organized by drainage areas

 Stream/River  Pipelines  Ditches/canals  Artificial Paths  Connectors  Underground Conduit  Coastline  Lake/pond Drain Features (reachcode)

 The information encoded about these features includes:  classification and other characteristics  geographic names  positions, lengths, and areas; “reach codes”  direction of water flow  metadata  supports future updates and improvements to the data

 The data support many applications, such as:  Making maps. Positional and descriptive data in the NHD provide the starting point for making many different kinds of maps.  Geocoding observations. Much like street addresses provide a way to link data to a road network, the NHD’s reach codes provide “stream addresses” as a means to link data to water features.  Modeling the flow of waters. Information about the direction of flow, when combined with other data, can help users model the transport of materials in hydrographic networks, and other applications.

 Watershed Boundary Data for California  1995 CDF - CalWater Map 1.1  DWR – CalWater 2.0 & 2.2  Mixed watershed & administrative boundaries  US Department of Agriculture, Natural Resources Conservation Service, Watershed Boundary Database watershed/

Cal Water 2.2.1Today WBD 2009

 Certified California WBD 10/2009

The integrated National Hydrography Dataset and Watershed Boundary Dataset to define streams and watersheds. Fact Sheet Revised September 2009

Using integrated geospatial data and hydrologic modeling to predict streamflow. Line-width is proportional to modeled streamflow.

NHD Home ( nhd.usgs.gov ) nhd.usgs.gov NHD Stewardship Home ( webhosts.cr.usgs.gov/steward/ ) webhosts.cr.usgs.gov/steward/ NHD Standards ( rockyweb.cr.usgs.gov/nmpstds/nhdstds.html ) rockyweb.cr.usgs.gov/nmpstds/nhdstds.html NHD Plus ( ) EPA’s Surf Your Watershed ( cfpub.epa.gov/surf/locate/index.cfm ) cfpub.epa.gov/surf/locate/index.cfm EPA WATERS (Watershed Assessment, Tracking & Environmental Results - ) Watershed Boundary Dataset ( ) CalWater Watershed Delineations ( )