Tag Archives: Surface water
Stay Connected to the Hydro Community with an RSS Feed
by Lara Saikali, Cartographic Product Engineer, Esri. Several community resource centers are available through the ArcGIS Resource Center, including a page dedicated specifically to Hydrology. The Hydrology Resource Center is an online community center that promotes hydro information products created … Continue reading
U.S. Soils Data Added to World Water Online
By Lori Armstrong
The World Water Online (WWO) group in the ArcGIS Resource Center has 12 new web map applications based on the SSURGO soil survey database. These apps show soil characteristics that are useful for hydrologic modeling, such as drainage class, available water storage, water table depth, and ponding frequency. The hydrologic group code, which classifies soils based on infiltration rate, can be used to calculate curve number and model how much rain falling in an area will become runoff.
GIS Hydro 2013 Pre-Conference Water Resources Workshop: More Coming Soon!
by Steve Kopp, Geoprocessing and Spatial Analysis Team, Esri
Jump-start your conference a day early by joining us for the 20th annual pre-conference Water Resources Workshop on Sunday July 7th. The Water Resources Workshop is a FREE, full day workshop focused on emerging trends in the integration of GIS and Water Resources and how you can use them in your work.
What’s in a name? The USGS on NHD Feature Names Inspection
by Cynthia Deischer and Ray Postolovski
Juliet: “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”
Romeo and Juliet meet in Shakespeare’s tale. They are predestined from the start because of their surnames. Juliet tells Romeo that a name is an artificial and meaningless convention. Meaning what matters is what something is, not what it is called. However in the geospatial community, a name is far from meaningless and what something is named is just as important as what something is. Continue reading
Are you using Arc Hydro Tools for 10.1 BETA?
We’d love to hear your feedback. Download the BETA 10.1 Arc Hydro Tools (32MB). Please contact archydro@esri.com with any and all feedback. Arc Hydro Tools are free with your ArcGIS software license. In the coming months, documentation for the tools … Continue reading
National Hydrography Dataset New Applications Page
by Kathy Isham, National Hydrography Dataset, USGS The US Geological Survey (USGS) has redesigned its applications page for the National Hydrography Dataset (NHD). The new applications page is organized into the six different types of applications that highlight how USGS … Continue reading
Arc Hydro Tools for 10.1 BETA now available!
by Caitlin Scopel, Cartographic Product Engineer, Esri
The Beta 
version of Arc Hydro tools for ArcGIS 10.1are now available. To download the tools (32MB) Continue reading
Hydro Basemap Gone GLOBAL
by Caitlin Scopel, Cartographic Product Engineer, Esri
The Hydro Basemap is now the WORLD Hydro Basemap. The World Hydro Basemap uses the same design as its predecessor, but extends the coverage to the World at scales of 1:147 million to 1:2.3 million. The World Hydro Basemap includes the map tiles from the original Hydro Basemap, providing coverage of the United States down to the 1:18,000 scale.
The World Hydro Basemap is comprised of two map service layers: the World Terrain Base, and the World Hydro Reference Overlay. The World Terrain Base provides the elevation context necessary to understand why the world’s surface water flows where it does.
The World Hydro Reference Overlay provides the streams, waterbodies, drainage areas, and cultural reference information necessary to make the World Hydro Basemap useful for scientists, professionals and researchers in the fields of Hydrology, Geography, Climate, Soils, and other natural sciences related to water.
Applying the Watershed Approach to Flood Control Activities
by Laurie Williams, Senior Planner/Watershed GIS, County of Marin, CA
The Department of Public Works of Marin County, CA (just north of San Francisco, CA) launched a watershed program to integrate flood protection, stream and wetland habitat restoration activities, fish passage, and water quality improvements. Instead of looking at flooding issues on a site by site basis, we solve flooding problems at a watershed scale, and employ solutions such as habitat restoration to reduce flood risks.
From the outset, we decided to base our stakeholder outreach, collection of scientific studies and technical reports, and dissemination of information from the Marin County Watershed Program website (http://www.marinwatersheds.org) in order to save paper resources, be more user-friendly, support community outreach and more efficiently advertise our updates than is possible with more traditional printed reports and documents.
Our website is the major repository of meeting notices, posted reports, and maps. Our website designer, Athena Design, chose a color palette to enhance and reflect the colors of nature: the blues of water, the greens of plants, and browns for earth tones; orange splashes complement the dominant blue. We use the palette extensively in producing the watershed maps, as well as for printed materials and PowerPoint presentations for a unified design.
Rapid Reconnaissance and Visualization of Time Series Hydrologic Data
by Stephen Brown, Graduate Research Assistant, Dept. of Civil Engineering, University of New Mexico
Hydrologic data analysis frequently begins with a tedious march through the gauntlet of national data repositories, downloading data gage-by-gage until you have acceptable coverage for your region. The march continues as you homogenize the gage data to match locally collected values in an attempt to identify trends or simply graph the values for comparison. A majority of research time may be spent simply conducting data discovery and management.
Incorporating a Hydrologic Information System into your workflow can save you time and increase analysis opportunities. The Consortium of Universities for Advancement of Hydrologic Science, Inc. (CUAHSI) has developed an open source Hydrologic Information System (HIS) specifically to aid researchers with data discovery, analysis, and management.
