Functional linkage of watersheds and streams: FLoWS v1 ArcGIS tools

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Functional linkage of watersheds and streams
FLoWS v1 ArcGIS tools

• John Norman, David Theobald, Erin Peterson,
  Silvio Ferraz
• Natural Resource Ecology Lab, Dept of Recreation
  Tourism, Colorado State University
• Fort Collins, CO 80523 USA 26
  July 2005

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Project context

• Challenges of STARMAP (EPA STAR)
• Addressing science needs Clean Water Act
• Integrate science with states/tribes needs
• Assisting statisticians to test tenable
  hypotheses generated using understanding of
  ecological processes

Goal to find measures that more closely
represent our understanding of how ecological
processes are operating
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Overview

• Reach Contributing Areas framework
• ArcGIS v9 tools

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FLoWS framework

• Typically overlapping, hierarchical watersheds
• Alternative is a detailed tessellation of reach
  catchment areas (RCAs)
• RCAs are non-overlapping, edge-matching polygons
  that are drawn to that their boundaries include
  nearby areas that would likely flow into a given
  reach.
• Use USGS National Hydrography Dataset
• - reach is a significant segment of surface
  water that has similar hydrologic characteristic
• In a GIS, a reach is typically represented as a
  polyline feature representing a unique
  head-to-confluence, confluence-to-confluence,
  confluence-to-mouth, or head-to-mouth segment in
  a river network.

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Generating RCAs
1.) Filled DEM
2.) Flow Direction
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Generating RCAs
3.) Stream Reaches ?
4.) RCAs (Yellow)
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Landscape Network
Landscape network features and associated
relationships table
From graph theory perspective, reaches are nodes,
confluences are edges
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Network connectivity errors
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Selections
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Distance matrices
Straight-line
Instream distance
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Distance matrices (cont.)
Downstream only
Upstream only
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Distance matrices (cont.)
Proportion upstream
Proportion downstream
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Distance matrices (cont.)
Downstream portion dist only
Number of confluences
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• Thanks!
• Comments? Questions?
• Funding/Disclaimer The work reported here was
  developed under the STAR Research Assistance
  Agreement CR-829095 awarded by the U.S.
  Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to Colorado
  State University. This presentation has not been
  formally reviewed by EPA.  The views expressed
  here are solely those of the presenter and
  STARMAP, the Program (s)he represents. EPA does
  not endorse any products or commercial services
  mentioned in this presentation.
• FLoWS www.nrel.colostate.edu/projects/starmap
• davet_at_nrel.colostate.edu