Subcommittee on Hydrology SOH

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Subcommittee on Hydrology(SOH)

• 2007 Report
• February 21, 2008
• Steve Blanchard
• USGS

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Subcommittee on Hydrology

• The purpose of the Subcommittee is to analyze
  relevant issues and facts and to draft proposed
  position papers or recommendations for improving
  the availability and reliability of surface-water
  quantity information.
• Carry out purpose by
• (a) sharing valuable water related information
  through the meetings and activities, and
• (b) organizing working groups to accomplish tasks
  as needed.

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Subcommittee on Hydrology

• Change in SOH Leadership at end of October 2007
  meeting
• Big Thanks to Past Chair Sam Lin
• Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
• Chair Steve Blanchard
• U.S. Geological Survey
• Vice Chair Mary Greene
• Office of Surface Mining

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Persons in Attendance at Meeting
Member Organizations
Meeting Outside DC
Member Organizations Attending Meeting
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Subcommittee on Hydrology

• Very active committee
• Met 4 times in 2007
• January, April, July, October
• Meet 4x per year for about a decade
• 4 Work Groups
• Hydrologic Modeling
• (Don Frevert BOR)
• Satellite Telemetry Interagency
• (Ernest Dreyer USGS)
• Hydrologic Frequency Analysis
• (Will Thomas ASFPM)
• Hydrologic and Hydraulic GIS Applications
• (Bill Merkel NRCS)

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Subcommittee on Hydrology

• Agricultural Research Service
• American Forests
• Association of State Floodplain Managers
• Bureau of Land Management
• Bureau of Reclamation
• Defenders of Property Rights
• Federal Emergency Management Agency
• Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
• Federal Highway Administration
• NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center

• National Hydrologic Warning Council
• Natural Resources Conservation Service
• National Science Foundation
• National Weather Service
• Nuclear Regulatory Commission
• Office of Surface Mining
• US Army Corps of Engineers
• US Environmental Protection Agency
• US Forest Service
• US Geological Survey

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SOH - Activities

• Published newsletter
• The SOH Connections
• March,
• June,
• October,
• December

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SOH - Activities

• Exploring forming an additional Work Group with
  focus on data sharing
• Information management and sharing--Create
  links among information systems to support easy
  access and to share ..
• Establish a mechanism that uses modern
  information technology to make data available to
  all interested parties.
• Investigating collaboration with CUAHSI and their
  Hydrologic Information System (HIS)

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SOH - Activities

• Exploring forming an additional Work Group with
  focus on extreme storms
• Storm-based precipitation is one of the major
  inputs to rainfall-runoff models and are needed
  for infrastructure design considerations
• The most recent Hydrometeorological Report (HMR)
  was published in 1999 and used data up to
  February 1986
• Extreme storm precipitation data from last 20-40
  years is not included in the existing HMRs
• Desire to develop a detailed scope of work and
  determine the necessary funding requirements to
  update HMR

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SOH Hydrologic Modeling Work Group

• Federal Interagency Hydrologic Modeling
  Conferences proceedings from 1998, 2002, 2006
  scanned and ready to be linked to work group web
  site.
• Working with Subcommittee on Sedimentation to
  plan for 2010 Joint Hydrologic Modeling and
  Sedimentation Conference tentative facility
  location selected and negotiations underway.

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SOH Satellite Telemetry Interagency Work Group
(STIWG)

• Chartered jointly by the Office of the Federal
  Coordinator for Meteorology (OFCM) and the
  Advisory Committee on Water Information (ACWI).
• Reports to OFCMs Committee for Environmental
  Services, Operations and Research Needs (
  C/ESORN) and ACWIs Subcommittee on Hydrology.
• Acts as a user's group for major users of the
  GOES DCS.
• Members include USBR, USGS, Corps of Engineers,
  BLM, Forest Service , NOAA, NPS, Dept. of
  State.
• Advises NOAA/NESDIS of user requirements
• Coordinates funding for user-desired improvements
  to the GOES DCS.
• Met 2x since last ACWI meeting (June 07, January
  08)

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Addressing Vulnerabilities in the GOES DCS System

• Working with NOAA/NESDIS to develop a roadmap to
  reduce existing vulnerabilities in the GOES DCS.
• Development an Emergency Data Distribution
  System(EDDN) at the USGS's EROS Data Center
• Development was jointly funded by the USGS and
  NOAA/NESDIS.
• Contract was awarded in July 2007 to install a
  complete GOES Reception System.
• Contract will be completed in Early March.
• Integration of the EDDN into existing real-time
  processing systems begins in March.

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Technical Improvements to the GOES DCS System

• Development of a 2-way communications capability
  for GOES DCS.
• Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR)
  contract was awarded to Sutron Corp. to build
  prototype.
• Contract managed by NOAA/NOS.
• Prototypes expected in June 2009.
• Development of a binary protocol for use on the
  GOES DCS.
• Development of a standard format for expressing
  metadata about remote sites for information
  sharing.

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Subcommittee on Hydrology

• Reports from
• Hydrologic Frequency Analysis Work Group
• Will Thomas ASFPM
• Hydrologic and Hydraulic GIS Work Group
• Bill Merkel NRCS
• Questions and comments

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Hydrologic Frequency Analysis Work Group

• Purpose To increase the usefulness of the
  current guidelines for Hydrologic Frequency
  Analysis computations (e.g. Bulletin 17B) and to
  evaluate other procedures for frequency analysis
  of hydrologic phenomena.

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Hydrologic Frequency Analysis Work Group (HFAWG)

• HFAWG composed of
• 18 active members
• 12 corresponding members
• Representatives from Federal agencies, private
  consultants, academia, water management agencies
• 12 meetings or conference calls since January
  2000 (last conference call July 12, 2007)
• http//acwi.gov/hydrology/Frequency/

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Hydrologic Frequency Analysis Work Group (HFAWG)
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Bulletin 17B

• Bulletin 17B - Published in 1982, includes
  guidelines for
• Fitting Pearson Type III distribution to
  logarithms of annual peak flows
• Estimating generalized skew
• Weighting generalized skew with station skew
• Low- and high-outlier detection tests
• Conditional probability adjustment for low
  outliers
• Adjustments for historic flood data

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Hydrologic Frequency Analysis Work Group (HFAWG)

• The HFAWG has developed a plan to evaluate
  improvements in Bulletin 17B
• Expected Moments Algorithm (EMA) new
  statistical technique for fitting the Pearson
  Type III distribution
• Evaluate and compare EMA and Bulletin 17B for
  analyzing data sets with historic and paleoflood
  data
• Evaluate and compare EMA and Bulletin 17B for
  analyzing data sets with low outliers and zero
  flows

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Hydrologic Frequency Analysis Work Group (HFAWG)

• Plan for improvements to Bulletin 17B
• Describe improved procedures for estimating
  generalized/regional skew
• Describe improved procedures for defining
  confidence limits
• Develop an electronic version of a new Bulletin
  17C

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Hydrologic Frequency Analysis Work Group (HFAWG)

• Testing of EMA is taking two approaches
• Observed data 82 gaging stations with historic
  peaks, high and low outliers
• Monte Carlo simulation simulate data from
  assumed frequency distributions
• Testing, which began in August 2007, is being
  accomplished by John England, USBR, and Tim Cohn,
  USGS

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Hydrologic Frequency Analysis Work Group (HFAWG)
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Hydrologic Frequency Analysis Work Group (HFAWG)
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Hydrologic Frequency Analysis Work Group (HFAWG)

• EMA was implemented as part of the USGS PeakFQ
  program Version 5.2 on USGS web site (November
  2007)
• Bureau of Reclamation code is consistent with
  USGS
• USACE is incorporating the EMA code in HEC-SSP
  (HEC-FFA)

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Hydrologic Frequency Analysis Work Group (HFAWG)

• EMA and Bulletin 17B analyses completed for 82
  stations
• Preliminary differences in 100-year estimates are
  ((EMA-B17)/B17)
• 10th percentile -12.24
• 25th percentile -2.44
• 50th percentile -0.02
• 75th percentile 0.54
• 90th percentile 9.71

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Hydrologic Frequency Analysis Work Group (HFAWG)

• Estimating generalized skew with a generalized
  least squares regression approach looks promising
• Time sampling and model error are estimated
• Variance of the at-site skew and spatial
  correlation is considered
• Recent study by USGS in SE USA indicates that
  effective record length of generalized skew is
  about 70 years

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Hydrologic Frequency Analysis Work Group (HFAWG)

• Confidence intervals in Bulletin 17B do not
  consider the uncertainty in skew estimate and the
  value of historic peaks
• Several papers describe improved procedures that
  can be incorporated in 17C
• Chowdury and Stedinger (1991)
• Cohn et al. (2001)
• Griffis et al. (2004)

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Hydrologic Frequency Analysis Work Group (HFAWG)

• Plans for the future
• Perform split-sampling analyses using the
  observed peak data
• Complete the Monte-Carlo simulations
• Have a HFAWG meeting to discuss results to date
  determine any new analyses
• Revise Bulletin 17B as appropriate
• Begin the review process of Bulletin 17C

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Hydrologic and Hydraulic GIS Applications Work
Group

• Presented by William Merkel
• USDA-NRCS

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SOH web page
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Work Group web page
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Teleconference minutes are posted
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Sample Fact Sheet
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USGS StreamStats
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US EPA BASINS
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US ACE HEC-GeoRAS
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US ACE HEC-GeoHMS
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NRCS Geo-Hydro
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Current and future activities

• Next teleconference March 5, 2008
• Present paper at AWRA conference
• Demonstrate GIS applications
• Distribute questionnaire to federal agencies and
  others.
• Develop page with web links to major applications.

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Questions?