Tommy Dewald - Western Governors' Association

National Hydrography Dataset Plus (NHDPlus)
Opportunities for Managing Water Availability and Use
Tommy Dewald – USEPA Office of Water
Water Information Exchange Workshop
Western States Governors Council Spring Meeting
Santa Fe, NM – April 13, 2011

NHDPlus Presentation Overview
• Concepts
• Noteworthy Applications
• Version 2 Enhancements
• Opportunities for Managing Water
Availabilty and Use

NHDPlus Concepts
• Why
– To develop flow volume and velocity
estimates for supporting pollutant fate-andtransport
(dilution) modeling
• What
1.Additional attributes for NHD streams
2.Catchments boundaries and attributes for
NHD streams
• How …

NHDPlus Builds Upon and Extends the
Capabilities of the NHD, WBD and NED
National
Hydrography
Dataset (NHD)
Watershed
Boundary
Dataset (WBD)
National
Elevation
Dataset (NED)

NHDPlus Concepts: Integration of
NHD, WBD, and NED
added to DEM surface in "walling"
technique
NHD Streams
“burned”
Into Elevation
NHD stream cells
subtracted from
DEM surface in "burning"
technique

NHDPlus Concepts: Integrating the
Landscape with the Stream Network
NHDPlus Catchments in 3D

Drainage Area Delineation
Based Upon NHDPlus Catchments
Drainage Area Delineation Results
Total Area (Square Kilometers) - 53.61

NHDPlus Concepts: Navigation of the
Linear Surface Water Network
Upper Colorado River Main Stem

NHDPlus Concepts: Navigation of the
Linear Surface Water Network
Upper Colorado River
Network

NHDPlus Concepts: Navigation of the
Surface Water Network and Catchments
Upper Colorado River
Drainage Area

NHDPlus Concepts:
Watershed Characterization
Main stem name: Colorado River (Upper)
Stream Order: 8
Mean annual precipitation
Mean annual temperature
392.8 mm
6.93 o C
Drainage area 276153 km 2
Land cover (1992)
Residential & Commercial 0.2%
Forest 27.7%
Barren 4.3%
Planted/Cultivated 2.3%
Grassland/Herbaceous 15.2%
Shrub 49.5%
Other 0.8%

NHDPlus Concepts: Linking Waterrelated
Features
Upper Colorado River
Stream Gages

NHDPlus Concepts: Linkage to USGS
Stream Gages and Associated Data
USGS
National Water Information System
(NWIS) Link
http://waterdata.usgs.gov/nwis/nwisman/site_no=09379910

NHDPlus Concepts: Link to NWIS
NWIS Link

WATERS Data Architecture
(Watershed
Assessment,
Tracking & Environmental
ResultS)
(www.epa.gov/waters)
GRTS
WQSDB
Nonpoint Source Grants
Reach Address Database
(RAD)
Water Quality Standards
National
Hydrography
Dataset Plus
ATTAINS
STORET
Water Quality Assessments,
Impaired Waters &
Total
Maximum
Daily
Loads
Water Quality Monitoring

Data Accessible Through WATERS
Public Access
• Listed Impaired Waters
• Assessed Waters
• Beaches
• Clean Watershed Needs
• Combined Sewer Overflows
• CWSRF Benefits Reporting
• Permitted Dischargers
• Fish Consumption Advisories
• Fish Tissue Data
• Impaired Waters with TMDLs
• Sewage No Discharge Zones
• Nonpoint Source Projects
• Water Quality Standards
• Water Quality Stations
Internal Access Only
• Drinking Water Intakes
• Source Water Areas
• Special Appropriations Projects

Co-Occurrence of
Impaired Waters and FWS Properties
An EPA, FWS and USGS Joint National Assessment
National Wildlife Refuge System
National Fish Hatchery System
Impaired Waters

EPA National Aquatic Resource Surveys
NHDPlus served as the basis for
establishing the National Lakes
Assessment sample frame – from
which a representative set of
sample sites (right) were
randomly selected.
NHDPlus is also being used to calculate
drainage areas for lake sampling sites
(left) to support data analysis.
(www.epa.gov/owow/lakes/lakessurvey)

USGS NAWQA SPARROW Models
for Major River Basins

Other Noteworthy NHDPlus
Applications
• First ever spatially-based national pesticide
risk assessment
• Clean Water Act jurisdictional analysis update
• Incident Command Tool for Water (ICWater)
• National Fish Habitat Action Plan
• Post Fire Debri Flow Hazards
• Aquatic habitat classification
(Share your NHDPlus applications with others
at www.epa.gov/waters > NHDPlus Quicklink)

Ehnancements to NHDPlus
• Version 1
• Released in 2006
• NHD, WBD, NED circa 2005
• Stream Flow Estimation Approaches
» Vogel Regression-based
» Unit Runoff Method (UROM)
• Version 2
• To be released in 2011
• Latest NHD, WBD, NED
• Stream Flow Estimation Approaches
» Vogel Regression-based
» Enhanced Runoff Method (EROM)

Improved Ingredient Data for
Flow Estimates
• PRISM Temperature and Precipitation (1971-2000)
• Annual and Monthly Runoff (4km grid)
• USGS NWIS Streamflow Gage Network Locations (30,000)
• Divergence Fractions (major)
• Water Flow Additions, Removals & Inter-basin Transfers
(major)
• TBD – NID Dam Network Locations

Enhanced Runoff Model (EROM) -
Flow Estimation for Un-gaged Streams
• Mean Flows - Monthly & Improved Annual
• Divergence Fraction
• Flow Volume and Velocity Estimates
• Runoff
• Excess Evapotranspiration
• Flow Additions, Removals and Inter-basin
Transfers
• Stream Flow Gage Adjustments

Opportunities for Applying NHDPlus
to Water Availability and Use
• Common data framework – stream network and
events for linking water additions and removals
along with inter-basin transfers, catchments
• Upstream/downstream network searches for
data linked by yours and other organizations
• Modeling framework, including EROM that can
accommodate different flow estimation
scenarios

Questions
Tommy Dewald, USEPA Office of Water
dewald.tommy@epa.gov
(www.epa.gov/waters > NHDPlus Quicklink)