IFMHA: Inventory of Field Measurement for Hydraulic Attributes

Dataset Access

Working with Git LFS

This repository stores IFMHA dataset with Git LFS, use the steps below to install and fetch them.

• Install (macOS / Homebrew):

  brew install git-lfs
  git lfs install
  git lfs version

• Install (Ubuntu / Apt):

  sudo apt update
  sudo apt install git-lfs
  git lfs install
  git lfs version

• Clone + download LFS objects (automatic):

  git clone https://github.com/smhassanerfani/ifmha.git
  cd dataset
  git lfs pull

Note: For private repositories use SSH or a Personal Access Token (PAT), and monitor GitHub LFS storage and bandwidth quotas.

Alternative Download (Google Drive)

If IFMHA repository reaches the 10 GB bandwidth limit, download the dataset directly from Google Drive: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1X3la64OP8Hpa6dAsqxMmRp0Ym2xJrJ5B/view?usp=sharing

Dataset Description

IFMHA includes 2,802,532 field measurements collected at 10,050 USGS gage sites across the US. The time span of these measurements is from 05-05-1845 to 10-24-2022. IFMHA extends the HYDRoSWOT dataset with the entire record of field measurements within NWIS including different types of field measurement methods (see Table 1). The number of unique gage sites included in IFMHA is 10,050 which is 31 sites less than HYDRoSWOT (17 of these stations are operated by an agency other than USGS, and the data for the other 14 stations are not available on the USGS website). IFMHA augmented the NWIS field measurements by adding relevant attributes reported in the NHDPlusV21 dataset.

Table 1. The different types of USGS streamflow field measurements methods.

Method	Description	Frequency	Percent
UNSPE	Unspecified	1204516	43.19%
QSCMM	Discharge, measured, midsection method	792169	28.40%
QADCP	Discharge, measured, ADCP from moving boat	437418	15.68%
OTHER		347104	12.45%
QFLUM	Discharge, measured, flume	3888	0.14%
QIDIR	Discharge, measured, indirect method	2959	0.11%
QVOLM	Discharge, measured, volumetric	900	0.03%
NONE		4	0.00%
ACOUS	Acoustic Doppler Current Profile (ADCP)	2	0.00%
ESTIM	Estimated	1	0.00%

IFMHA consists of three main sources of data including HYDRoSWOT, NWIS field measurements, and NHDPlus V2 datasets. The order and process of incorporating each dataset for the compilation of IFMHA are depicted in Figure 1. The flowchart outlines the sequential steps involved in dataset adoption.

Figure 1. Flowchart illustrates the incorporation of data sources for the compilation of IFMHA.

Dataset Field Attributes

NWIS Field Measurements

For the compilation of IFMHA, field measurements were queried in a tab-separated format from NWIS Site Inventory and then parsed and converted into a unified data frame comprised of records for all sites. For this purpose, URL links for each USGS site station were first created using the list of site numbers in the HYDRoSWOT dataset. Then, field measurements for each site station were queried from the NWIS Web Interface using the URL links. Finally, the requested text file of each site was parsed into a unified data frame.

HYDRoSWOT

HYDRoSWOT is an extensive collection of USGS cross-section surveys for supporting Surface Water Oceanographic Topography (SWOT). The dataset comprises over 200,000 records of USGS Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler discharge measurements collected from the USGS streamgaging network. It offers a range of essential fields, including mean and maximum depth, velocity, discharge, stage, and water-surface width. IFMHA borrows station_nm, dec_lat_va, dec_long_va, site_tp_cd, drain_area_va, contrib_drain_area_va features from HYDRoSWOT.

NHDPlusV2

National Hydrography Dataset Plus (NHDPlus) is a national geospatial surface water framework including the features and capabilities of the National Hydrography Dataset (NHD), the National Elevation Dataset (NED), and the Watershed Boundary Dataset (WBD). NHDPlus integrates the vector NHD stream network and WBD hydrologic unit boundaries with the NED gridded land surface. IFMHA includes COMID, STATE_CD, STATE, DASqMi, DASqKm, LatSite, LonSite as well as FTYPE, StreamOrde, SLOPE which are borrowed from NHDPlus_GageLoc and NHDPlus_NHDFlowline_Network of NHDPlusV2.

Reference

Please cite the following papers when referencing this work or any of the foundational concepts discussed, and use the provided links to find the manuscripts:

• Manuscript at Environmental Modelling & Software

  @article{erfani2024large,
  title={A large dataset of fluvial hydraulic and geometry attributes derived from USGS field measurement records},
  author={Erfani, Seyed Mohammad Hassan and Erfani, Mahdi and Cohen, Sagy and Downey, Austin RJ and Goharian, Erfan},
  journal={Environmental Modelling \& Software},
  volume={180},
  pages={106136},
  year={2024},
  publisher={Elsevier}
  }