NHD Meeting
Friday, May 13
In
Attendance:
Jeff
Simlie, USGS Denver (via phone conference)
Al Rea, USGS
Gene Dana, USGS
Bob Smith, Idaho Department of Lands
Derek McNamara, Idaho Department of Lands
Nathan Bentley, Idaho State Administration
Dave Gruenhagen, Idaho Department of Lands
Tim Williams, Idaho Department of Fish & Game
Zach Maillard, Idaho Department of Water Resources
Sharon Parkes, USFS – Research
Mike Radko, Idaho Power
Michael Ciscell, Idaho Department of Water Resources
Gary Young, USBR – Burley Office
Mark Lovell – BYU Idaho
Linda Davis, Idaho Department of Water Resources
Bruce Tuttle, Idaho Department of Water Resources
Adrian Pfisterer, GIS
Mike Beaty, USBR Boise
Christa Braun, BLM Idaho State Office
Sara Stolz, Ada County Assessor’s Office
Sheldon Bluestein, Ada County Assessor’s Office
Sandra Thiel, Idaho Department of Water Resources
Genna Ashley-Poulson, Idaho Department of Water Resources
The
meeting began at approximately 10:15 a.m. Round-table
introductions were made.
Stewardship
in Idaho
Members
of Idaho’s GIS community met on May 13 to discuss the stewardship of the
National Hydrography Dataset produced for the State, and designated the Idaho
Department of Water Resources (IDWR) as the steward for hydrography.
The high resolution NHD is essentially done for Idaho, with only portions
of two sub-basins remaining. There has been a long-time interest in the State to
make edits, particularly to add stream and canal names, and flow direction on
ditches and canals.
Now,
with statewide NHD nearly complete, and the NHD Geo Edit tool available soon,
Idaho is ready to launch a stewardship process.
Participants include the Idaho Department of Water Resources (IDWR), the
Idaho Department of Lands, the Idaho Department of Fish and Game, the U.S.
Bureau of Reclamation, and the U.S. Geological Survey.
IDWR will act as the principal steward for Idaho hydrography and will
coordinate edits contributed by a variety of expert organizations in Idaho. IDWR
will forward those edits to the USGS for normal distribution.
The
Idaho Department of Water Resources will have a web site available to provide
status and post notices on NHD activity in the State.
The web site will foster communication among agencies and collaboration
on editing activities. The web site
will help resolve potential problems in the early stage of the process, when
they are easier to solve. Idaho is
fortunate in having a water resources community that is strong in GIS and
dedicated to building highly accurate hydrography that all agencies can share.
Idaho
needs to augment the NHD by adding stream names, and canal names and flow
direction. IDWR has applied for and been awarded a $60,000 FGDC CAP grant to
accomplish the needed augmentation.
In
Idaho, as in many states, stream and canal names are an important addition to
the NHD. USGS requires that only names recognized by the Geographic Names
Information System be used for the NHD, but Idaho organizations need the local
names as well. Local names could be linked to the NHD with a simple table using
com_ID or river reach codes. Idaho also a large number of irrigation canals.
The canals need to have names and flow directions added to complete an
integrated flow network.
Idaho
organizations are also interested in other enhancements to the NHD. These
enhancements include perennial/intermittent stream classification, the use of
local resolution data, the conversion of LLID stream routes to the NHD reach
indexing system, and a variety of attributes that can be attached to the NHD,
such as water temperature, which is a key factor is fish survival.
Miscellaneous
discussion at the meeting included the following:
We
need a way to get edits back into datasets
Tracy
Fuller said that Gene Dana is the interim contact in his absence.
Three
hucs are remaining. CFF and DLG
data has been created. Some of the
names (from GNIS) were put on channels, but not on the canals.
Of
the three remaining hucs:
Jordan Creek (17050108) has been turned into
the greater database
Asotin
(17060103) and Pend Oreille (17010216) should be complete by the end of the
fiscal year, in September. They are
very close for initial completion.
Washington
and Oregon also pushing the NHD.
Utah
is complete
Nevada
complete along border with Idaho
Montana
complete along shared border
USGS
partnership grant:
IDWR
will add canal names to the dataset
Funding
for Fish and Game to look at long-term 100k datasets:
LLID (latitude/longitude identifier) to the NHD.
This
grant is currently at the contract office and they will contact Linda Davis when
it has been completed. Some money
has been set aside for travel and training opportunities.
Handed
out Minnesota MOU (Memorandum of Understanding).
We would like to have something like this for the state of Idaho.
We
want one principal steward for Idaho; other cooperators within the state would
report to the principal steward.
IDWR
would be the lead agency and would have an MOU in place.
Editing
tools have been developed by ESRI in coordination with USGS.
Works
with ArcMap
Automatically
updates all classes
Should
be done in May or June
There
will be training in Corvallis, probably June or July
The
initial trainees should be able to go around and give training
The
first class is intended for Forest Service and USGS employees
Tracy
talked about the CAP grant that is available.
Tracy Fuller or Linda Davis has more information.
When
the NHD in Geo was created they stopped creating the NHD in Arc or the coverage
format.
There
is an SDE database for the entire (completed) state, and it should be completed
sometime in May or a personal Geodatabase can be downloaded.
We
want the entire state in one database for networking.
Sandra downloaded all personal GDB and Zach was able to append and route
along the appended streams. Data
has been extracted from the following URL:
http://nhdgeo.usgs.gov/viewer.htm
Zach
Maillard (IDWR) gave a power point presentation about appending the NHD
Geodatabase.
Canal-level
names will be included in the future
A
question was asked regarding how to add data within the state – how would this
sharing process work?
Linear
referencing: Most tables will not
be distributed by the USGS. We
eventually want to be able to download event tables with the data – moving
toward linking tables. Tables could
be linked to reference updates.
Another question was
asked: If IDWR is in charge of data
maintenance and another agency had data, how would USGS access that data?
How are other states maintaining that data?
Data
maintenance and event tables would be two separate processes, and there has been
no real precedent set yet. IDWR
would have a website or clearinghouse to download tables, etc.
IDWR
will give USGS the data locally. As
stewards, IDWR would take changes; validate them either within the agency or
with the technical working group. They
would then incorporate the changes and submit them to the national database.
IDWR would also maintain value attribute tables.
They would also send out notices and keep the website.
A question was asked
regarding the protocol for changing stream names. Should it go through the GNIS?
What about name contradictions?
Federal law only allows
official GNIS names. To change
stream names we may go through GNIS. Officially
only GNIS names are allowed. An
option for local names, not within GNIS, would be to keep a separate table.
If the names are incorrect, they need to be submitted through GNIS for
correction. Possible options to this problem would be:
1. GNIS
might have provisional name capability
2.
Creating an event table with local names
3.
No event, just a table
The
Com-id could be the link to local names.
The
editing tool, when available, might have a function that could expedite name
changes to the GNIS.
Idaho
also has the Idaho Geographic names council – which meets twice a year
The
option is to maintain something locally while going through the update process
with GNIS
Keven
Roth from the USGS sent an email indicating that names such as Gulch, Draw,
Canyon and Valley may be used with streams.
Probably not add creek to the name Ohio Gulch
New
streams would have new reach codes. Tributaries
would not split or change.
Curious
about how this will work with SteamNet and LLID issue.
Dan
Wickwire – completion maybe next year.
Sheldon
Bluestein will talk with IDWR about canals and local resolution within Ada
County
A
question was asked: How do we
document local resolution (greater than 1:24,000).
Reach
codes at 24k and conflate down to 5000. Vermont
has done this.
A
question was asked: How is feature
level metadata implemented?
Separate
object class (table) associated with metadata.
Attributes are in the table (identify)
How
do we determine non-existent streams – local data or high resolution?
TWG
would need to make a judgment on when data exceeds high resolution, then it goes
to local. This will depend upon the
collection process and scale.
Different
agencies shared what they have been working on that used NHD data:
Idaho
Department of Lands
Involved
with the Snake River Adjudication process too.
Working
on cumulative watershed projects: TMDLs etc.
Idaho
Forestry Program to track stream classes.
Lots
of potential data issues. They may implement SDE and would like to be a steward.
They proposed connecting springs via com-id
Forest
Service Research
Aquatics – using as base
also creating through their DEM-based program, Stream shading (LIDAR) radiation,
Temperature, and how that affects fish. Measures water to depths of up to 30 feet.
Risk
mapping related to fire and prescribed burns
Genetics
– statistical using routes to determine population.
Fish
and Game
Are
maintaining parallel databases.
DEQ
(Sandra read an e-mail sent from Jim Szpara - NHD for DEQ in a nutshell):
Stream
Water Quality Designated Uses, "pseudo" Stream Order, & Support
Status have been linear referenced to the 100K NHD w/NHD Reach Indexing tools.
Designated Uses and Support Status reside in our SQL- EPA developed ADB
ver 2.0 /Assessment Database.
Edits
and updates to support status are facilitated through the SQL-ADB interface by
Regional and State Office Water quality analysts.
Edits to the Reach indexing files are usually performed at the State
Office utilizing the ADB-RIT tools by Sean Coyle.
ArcSDE
also maintains a statewide merged copy of the 100K NHD within our ID305B feature
class (available for download @insideIdaho).
Various SQL-SDE spatial views were created to link the Support Status and
Designated Use data from ADB for ArcView Users and the public with our DEQWATERS
ArcIMS
applications for 2002 & 2004 reporting years.
The
USGS is still waiting to hear about training.
There will be another meeting before the training begins.
The Forest Service, along with ESRI, plans to hold training in Corvallis
Oregon for FS and USGS personnel.
The
group would like to have the organization in place first
The
training lasts three days.
This meeting adjourned at approximately 12:15, MDT.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Watershed
Meeting Minutes
TWG Meeting May 13, 2005
USGS
Office – Boise, ID
In
Attendance –
Al Rea, USGS
Gary Young, USBR – Burley
David Blew, Idaho Department of Water Resources
Linda Davis, IDWR
Sandra Thiel, IDWR
Genna Ashley, IDWR
No
attendees
The meeting
began at approximately 1:15 p.m.
HUC
Review
Lower
Boise 17050114 – David
Blew, with the Idaho Department of Water Resources joined the meeting.
David has vast local knowledge of the Lower Boise hydrologic unit and
helped review the delineations for this area.
One of the main issues with the Lower Boise unit is that it has two
separate pour points for the 4th field boundary; where the Boise
River meets the Snake River, AND where Sand Hollow Creek meets the Snake River.
Per Dave Blew, the 1867 and 1868 Cadastral Survey notes do not mention
Sand Hollow Creek, and his opinion is that it did not exist at that time.
According to survey notes, in 1876 the Boise River had 2 outlets to the
Snake River – the North and South Sloughs.
The
Cottonwood Creek line was adjusted – see shapefile created during the meeting.
The
Lower Boise River-Mill Slough 6th field unit will be renamed Hartley
Gulch.
The
Hartley Gulch, Big Gulch and Little Gulch Creek 6th field areas will
be adjusted to more accurately reflect the historic data of the 1867 Cadastral
Survey. Genna Ashley will
re-digitize this area, following Dave Blew’s linework.
Dave
Blew will go through the old survey notes and see if there were any sloughs
around the mouth of the Boise River.
Genna
Ashley will make the necessary changes on this huc and bring it back to the TWG
for a continuing review.
Al
Rea demonstrated some tips and tricks he has learned with editing features in
ArcMap. These included building
topology with linework, and comparing 2 datasets for differences.
The
meeting concluded at approximately 4:30 p.m.