Data Development Subcommittee NHD Stewardship Team MinutesDecember 5, 2005
Attending:
USGS: Ray Fox, Gladys Conaway
DNR: Jeff Schloss, Renee Robinson, Barbara Ruppel,
MORAP: Gust Annis
NRCS: Elizabeth Cook
Ryan Lanclos: GIO
Vicky Snowden of EPA tried to call in to the meeting but a connection was not established.
Lori Wilson of Mark Twain National Forest was absent.
Background
The meeting was called by Ray Fox in response to a question on NHD Stewardship in Missouri from Joe Miller, Forest Service Regional Office in Milwaukee. Jeff Schloss of DNR agreed to host the meeting at DNR in Jefferson City.
Purpose
Explain the rationale behind establishing a High-Resolution NHD Steward. Present various options for stewardship being developed elsewhere in the country. Explain what NHD Stewardship means, and discuss how Missouri may want to proceed. The NSDI Partnership agreement signed by USGS and the Missouri GIS Advisory Committee includes action to identify data stewards for the base data being served in The National Map, or by the state through MSDIS, the state clearinghouse.
Meeting Notes
Gladys Conaway gave apowerpoint presentation on NHD Stewardship. The Mark Twain NF gave USGS an update of the current NHD data which is being incorporated into the NHD Database. Gladys noted that USGS will continue to maintain the NHD Geodatabase, but that the user community needed to be the gatekeeper for updates. Several questions or requests for more information were taken as actions by Gladys (see table below).
Several future meetings were suggested. One will be called after the actions below are completed. It was suggested that efforts be made to invite EPA and Mark Twain NF to the next meeting as their input is needed. EPA is using the medium resolution NHD as their data, when will EPA switch to the high-resolution data? As the Forest Service is a major user of the high-resolution NHD (at least nationally), what will their involvement be with the data steward? The other meeting will be a workshop on using the geodatabase. Many users of hydrologic data are not using the high-resolution NHD, or not to its full capacity and training on how to use it would be of benefit. Ray Fox will set up the next meeting and the workshop which should again be in the Jefferson City area.
Notes and actions from NHD Stewardship meeting for Gladys
Barb: Send softcopy of status map (done)
Liz: Interested in revision methods. Carl Nelson will send information when its ready.
Jeff Schloss: What is the process for updating medium resolution NHD, and is it being maintained at the national level?
Jeff, Renee: Will EPA shift its focus from maintaining 100K NHD to the 24K? Do they plan to work with states who want to use the 24k and begin using it themselves?
Renee: Still needs a statewide dataset to load to DNR. Need a status of when this will be available.
Barb: When will the Reach Indexing Tool be ported to ARCGIS?
Renee: Versioning extracting historical data from theGeoDB. Will users be able to get historical data on request?
Gust: Is Stream Order being populated in med/high res?
All: Set up user workshop.
All: Want a better understanding of how Feds will work together. Want more info on the FS plan for their NHDGeoDB.
Actions from Dec 5 Meeting
Gladys Conaway, USGS
Q, What is the process for updating medium res NHD? Is it being maintained at a national level?
Answer: Yes there is a process and it is being maintained. Anyone inquiring about the possibility of updating medium resolution data should be referred to the EPA as steward for medium resolution NHD data. The EPA will manage the updates to medium resolution content to prevent conflicts between their efforts and those from the community. Please refer anyone that has an interest in updating the medium resolution data to Tommy Dewald, dewald.tommy@epa.gov, 202-260-2488.
Q, What is the EPA policy on maintaining NHD? When will they require states to use the 24k; when its done?
Answer, E-mail from Tommy Dewald EPA Office of Water – EPA plans to move to high res nhd once it’s completed.
Actually, EPA doesn’t require states to use NHD (since there is no law or regulation that requires it), rather we strongly encourage them to use it. It does make sense to do so after all.I should not have used the word ‘require’ in my question. I don’t think anyone at the meeting actually used that word when talking about reporting information to EPA.
I expect that EPA will try to continue maintaining the med res once hi-res is completed. We’ll probably keep both. One reason is that we need catchments and flow volume/velocity to support our applications and developing these addtional data requires significant additional processing, so it will be awhile before we have it for hi res.
There are a number of water program specific guidance docs on our website that reference using the nhd to support their program goals. See:http://www.epa.gov/waters/doc/index.html
Q. Versioning extracting historical data from theGeoDB. Will users be able to get historical data on request?
Answer, E-mail from Paul Wiese, USGS NHD Geodatabase Manager – While we have the capability to generate historical data, we have not developed a procedure to extract this data. Since almost all of the historical data in the NHD reflect qa/qc fixes rather than actual changes in the landscape, this requirement has remained a low priority. However, if Missouri has a requirement to routinely access such data, we can start to take a look at it. Also, depending on the level of technical involvement in managing NHD updates within Missouri, it may be possible to implement access to historical data on the state database.
Q. When will RIT be ported to ARCGIS? Currently the Reach Indexing Tool (RIT) is only available inArcViewvia theNHDGEOinArcformat. You must specify theNHDGEOinArcformat when downloading subbasins from the NHD Geodatabase. EPA will port to the NHDGEO format when USGS is able to provide transaction level updates. That work has not been started.
Q. Is stream order being populated in med/high res? Yes, for medium res it is currently being computed based on the Strahler Stream Order. It is in the NHD as a Value Added Attribute (VAA) that will be available soon inNHDPlus.NHDPluscontains value added attributes including; stream order, total upstream miles, and distance to sink. Medium ResolutionNHDPluswill be available by the summer of 2006. Workshops for EPA and USGS personnel will be offered in Feb, and April. It will also be offered at the American Water Resources Association (AWRA) Conference in May. For more information contact Tommy Dewald. I’ve attached theNHDPlusDocumentation for those who are interested.
I’m waiting on getting answers to the rest of the questions.
As for workshops we can set up a 1 day hands on workshop that will cover the structure of theNHDinGeo, how to use commonly used tools available on the website, and other NHD based applications when your schedules permit. In addition, there will be more information being posted to the NHD site. I’ll notify you when it becomes available.
Gladys