NATIONAL HYDROGRAPHY DATASET (NHD)Modeling the fate and transport of toxic spills in rivers is critical in forecasting the time-of-travel and concentration of contaminants that may

WATER RESOURCES

May 2016 | Volume 18 | Number 3

AmericAn WAter resources AssociAtion

NATIONAL HYDROGRAPHY DATASET (NHD)

Volume18•Number3www.awra.org•3

FEATURE ARTICLES 6 Minnesota’s Use of NHD to

Support Surface Water Quality The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency turned to the National Hydrography Dataset to protect and restore Minnesota’s lakes, streams, and rivers. By Jennifer Crea, et al.

12 Modeling River Spills Using the National Hydrography Dataset Plus Modeling the fate and transport of toxic spills in rivers is critical in forecasting the time-of-travel and concentration of contaminants that may impact water supplies. By William B. Samuels, et al.

16 Washington State: Fish, Stormwater, Pipelines and the National Hydrography Dataset Washington State adopted the National Hydrography Dataset (NHD) in January 2011 with the goal of having a single enterprise standard for hydrography. By Anita Stohr

20 State Water Quality Assessments – Measuring Progress Using NHDPlus In 2006, EPA transitioned to the National Hydrography Dataset Plus to assess surface waters and determine whether their waters are meeting their water quality standards. By Wendy Reid, et al.

23 NHDPlus as a Geospatial Framework for SPARROW Modeling Spatially Referenced Regressions on Watershed Attributes uses nonlinear statistical methods to define conceptual and spatial relations among quantities of contaminant sources. By John W. Brakebill, et al.

26 The Watershed Boundary Dataset for Improved Natural Resource Analysis and Management Since the introduction of the Hydrologic Unit Code concept to the scientific community for organizing watersheds, and the resulting WBD, the watershed system has been used extensively within the NRCS. By J. Steven Nechero, et al.

C O N T E N T S

OTHER FEATURES Messages

5 President’s Message Martha Narvaez, AWRA President

Columns

28 What’s Up with Water? Appalachia, Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow: A Microcosm of Water Resource Problems in the United States

30 The New Economics of Water: Mapping Water Availability and Costs in the West

AWRA Business

31 State Section and Student Chapter News

32 Summer Conference Preliminary Program

33 IWRM Award Call for Nominations

34 April JAWRA Highlights

34 2016 Editorial Calendar

About this issue Issue theme: National Hydrography Dataset (NHD)Associate Editor: Jeff Simley, U.S. Geological Survey (Retired) OfthehundredsofstoriesabouttheNationalHydrographyDataset atwork,Ihavechosensixtorepresentthegreatworkofthousandsofpeopleacrossthenation.FirstCrea,etal.,oftheStateofMinnesota,willtellusaboutprotectingwaterqualityinastatewherewaterisparticularlyvitaltotheeconomyandtothewayoflife.Thisstory,likemanyothers,dealswithintegratinginformationsothatwatermanagershaveaccesstothedatatheyneedtomakedecisions.NextSamuels,etal.,ofLeidos,talkaboutprotectingpublicwatersuppliesfromtheeffectsoftoxicspills,citingtwoexamplesthatveryaccuratelypredictedoutcomes.Oneoftheremarkablecharacteristicsoftheirworkisthatitcanbeappliedanywhereinthecountry,atanytime.Itisnotjustalaboratoryexperiment.

Thenwe’lllookatanotherstate.Thistimeit’stheStateofWashingtonwithStohrgivingusthestoryonprotectingwatertosustainfisheriessosignificanttothestateandtherestofthePacificCoast.We’lllearnhoweveryoneinthestateisnowonthesamepagewhenitcomestowaterresourcedata.UpnextisReid,etal.,oftheEnvironmentalProtectionAgencywhoshowhowcutting-edgethinkingongeospatialdatacanbeusedtospeedupandbettermanagethewaterqualitygoalsoftheCleanWaterAct.ThisisfollowedbyBrakebill,etal.,oftheU.S.GeologicalSurveystudyingthetransportofnutrientsthroughthenation’sdrainagesystemusingsophisticatedmodelingtools.Thevalueofthismodelingisdependentonparticularlygoodgeospatialdata.FinallyNechero,etal.,oftheNaturalResourceConservationServicediscussestheWatershedBoundaryDataset,theessentialcompaniontotheNationalHydrographyDataset.Thisarticlegivesagoodinsightonhowwatersheddata,particularlymorehighlydetailedwatersheddata,allowforbetterlandmanagement.

4 •WaterResourcesIMPACTMay2016

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VOL. 18 • NO. 3 • MAY 2016 • ISSN 1522-3175

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ASSOCIATE EDITORSJOE BERG ([email protected]) Biohabitats, Inc. – Baltimore, Maryland

LISA BEUTLER ([email protected]) MWH – Sacramento, California

MAE A. DAVENPORT ([email protected]) University of Minnesota – St. Paul, Minnesota

JONATHAN E. JONES ([email protected]) Wright Water Engineers – Denver, Colorado

CLAY J. LANDRY ([email protected]) WestWater Research – Boise, Idaho

RICHARD H. MCCUEN ([email protected]) University of Maryland – College Park, Maryland

E. TIM SMITH ([email protected]) Sustainable Water Resources Roundtable

MICHAEL E. CAMPANA ([email protected]) American Water Resources Association Middleburg, VA


Washington State:Fish,Stormwater,PipelinesandtheNationalHydrographyDataset

F E A T U R E

Anita Stohr


Washington State adopted the National Hydrography Dataset (NHD) in January 2011 with the goal of having a single enterprise standard for hydrography (Policy 161.03).

Previously, each major natural resource agency in the state was managing its own proprietary hydrography

dataset to meet its own business needs, resulting in the duplication of effort and complicating data transfer and

analysis among partner agencies. Since the adoption of the NHD standard, the state has focused on associating the highest priority water resources, human health and fisheries datasets with the NHD, correcting the most prominent errors in the data, assisting other government agencies to adopt the NHD and providing access to the

NHD for a variety of users.

A shared surface water dataset is critical for effective management of the state’s natural resources. Local, state, federal and tribal agencies all have the common goal of putting water resources to work for drinking, recreation, fish and wildlife, industry, forestry, agriculture and hydropower. Washington and neighboring states on the west coast are unique in that they have threatened and endangered Pacific salmon and shellfish industries that rely on high quality freshwater and marine habitat.

Case studiesThe four cases presented here are examples of improvements in resource

management that are possible because agencies with different missions are talking about the same water using the same geospatial dataset. The common theme in these cases is how Washington uses the NHD to ensure safe habitat for fisheries.

Case Study: Fish Distribution and the Clean Water ActSalmon and steelhead fisheries in Washington are co-managed by the

Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) and Treaty Tribes in Washington. A grant from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) provided the resources to form a team charged with jointly mapping fish distribution on the NHD. Prior to this, the WDFW and the Northwest Indian

Fisheries Commission (NWIFC) each had its own fish distribution mapped onto its own agency hydrography layers. Agreeing on upper extents of various fish

species is difficult enough, but having them on different versions of spatial stream hydrography data made it extremely challenging.

The WDFW’s SalmonScape web mapping application, released in February 2015, shows the joint agency fish distribution located on the NHD through linear event referencing, a method of linking data about water to the hydrography. Data in this web map are currently undergoing field verification with biologists across the state.


Where these species live, along with timing of spawning and rearing, affect not only fishing seasons, but the Clean Water Act (CWA) water quality standards, logging regulations, the temperature and dissolved oxygen limits on point source discharges to those streams and timing of construction projects.

Implementation of the CWA rules is improved by having all of the data on the same NHD geometry. Figure 1 shows an example using char and salmon spawning and egg incubation areas which require cooler waters. These locations were originally approved by the EPA and distributed as paper maps. Washington Ecology’s first version of Water Quality Standards NHD linear event layers involved transferring these locations from the paper maps to the NHD by hand. With the WDFW/NWIFC Fish Distribution on NHD, the state has a much better set of checks and balances. Fish Distribution (Panel 1a), can generate, update, or verify the aquatic life beneficial uses and the appropriate standards (Panel 1b).

The CWA requires states to evaluate standards against water quality monitoring data and to generate a 303(d) list and 305(b) report. Panel 1c shows the Environmental Information Management (EIM) web map interface where water quality scientists use the linear event referencing tool to collect the necessary linear reference data to upload along with the sample data. All water quality data submitted to the agency to be used for assessing surface water is required to have this linear event referencing data. There are currently 50,000 surface water monitoring stations in the database. Panel 1d shows generation of the 303(d) list of waters requiring clean up. Washington State’s first 303(d) list using 1:24,000-scale high resolution NHD is expected to be approved by the EPA later this spring.

Case Study: Inadequate Culverts: Fish Passage Barriers and Miles of Upstream Habitat

Twenty-one northwest Washington tribes asked the U.S. District Court to find that the State of Washington has a treaty-based duty to preserve fish runs,

and sought to compel the state to repair or replace culverts that impede salmon migration. In 2013, an injunction by the U.S. District Court required the State to repair hundreds of culverts that block or impede passage of salmon and steelhead. These culverts, or pipes, that run under state roads are often too small for fish to pass through, too high over the stream bed for the fish to reach, or clogged with dirt or debris.

Staff from the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) and the WDFW have been making field visits to each culvert, locating them with GPS, and identifying those needing repair. Miles of upstream potential habitat that can be restored to salmonid use by fixing each culvert is a key criteria.

To facilitate using the NHD to quantify upstream habitat, the Washington State NHD Data Steward began using those field located culverts to better pinpoint and edit stream crossings in December 2015. Field verified points are especially important in wooded areas, areas that lack high resolution topography coverage, or for very wide roadways. Having the ability to locate culverts on the NHD as linear event referencing is important not only for habitat studies like these, but also for stormwater input evaluation which often occur at road crossings, as well.

Case Study: Stormwater: Protecting Puget Sound and Shellfish

Washington State is the nation’s leading commercial producer of oysters, clams and mussels and brings in over $100-million in sales annually. Since 1980, over 30% of Puget’s Sound’s shellfish-growing area has been closed due to polluted water that leads to contaminated shellfish. The Puget Sound Toxics Assessment reported: “Polluted stormwater runoff – carrying toxic chemicals, nutrients, sediment and bacteria – is the primary pollution threat to our lakes, rivers, streams and Puget Sound. The Puget Sound Partnership’s 2012 Action Agenda identified preventing stormwater pollution, restoring and protecting habitat and recovering shellfish beds as its top initiatives.

Identifying where stormwater enters the state’s streams is clearly of high importance. Municipalities and the WSDOT are required to map their stormwater outfalls as part of their MS4 National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permits. Although the permittees have fulfilled that requirement, there is no guidance regarding how to submit that data or what format is preferred.

In 2015, Washington Ecology received a USGS NHD grant to work with permittees and state agencies to create a GIS standard

Figure1.CleanWaterAct303(d)listgenerationusingNHDlineareventreferencingsourcedata.


for reporting MS4 outfall data. This project will create a recommended statewide reporting standard, with a preferred file type and a set of attributes, to be completed for each outfall. This statewide standard will make it easier for permittees to share data amongst each other and with Ecology. It will also help to connect infrastructure, like pipes and ditches, to waterbodies in the NHD.

King County, which contains the city of Seattle and is the State’s most populated county, is the pilot area for this NHD project. The project objective is to improve the accuracy of NHD hydrography so that stormwater sites correctly fall on NHD flowlines. There are some cases where stormwater sites discharge to utility conveyance features that are not appropriate for NHD. These will be accommodated using new methods to be developed in the NHD.

To date, all outfall locations have been gathered by the Washington State Department of Natural Resources (WADNR) and placed into a single database. A later project phase will look at commonalties in data structure and convene a discussion among municipal stormwater permittees and state agencies with the goal of reaching a common standard.

Case Study: Oil Spill Contingency Planning Regulations- Rail and Pipeline Rulemaking.

In 2015, the Washington Legislature directed WDOE to develop new oil spill contingency planning regulations for railroads and to update existing oil spill contingency planning regulations for pipelines. Washington State has experienced dramatic changes in the amount and types of oil transported by rail and pipeline.

Especially important were the need to identify large streams crossed by pipe or rail lines that could be impacted by oils spills. Clean up response on those streams needed to be quick and the rules for crossing these streams needed to be something that could be written into statute and easily understood.

Spills Program staff asked for guidance on how best to select larger streams from the NHD that could be used to establish equipment planning standards. Because of the work to map the highest priority resources as linear events, the Shorelines

of Statewide Significance database had been completed several years ago and presented an ideal solution. The Shoreline Management Act (SMA) states that “the interests of all the people shall be paramount in the management of shorelines of statewide significance.” These large rivers and important marine areas are covered by State Law (RCW 90.58.030(2)).

This previous work facilitated the process to find all locations where oil transport by pipeline or rail intersect the SMA designated streams to generate the high priority response locations. Oil transport rulemaking is now in the draft stages.

Focused projects to link Washington’s salmon and steelhead resources, water rights diversions and dams to the NHD through linear event referencing began immediately after adoption as the state enterprise hydrography standard. Because of good leadership and vision within the state, databases containing critical point location data, such as environmental monitoring sites and NPDES outfalls, were updated to allow capture of the linear event referencing data. The EIM Web Map was the first to include a custom referencing tool allowing non-GIS users to locate their monitoring sites and submit their data with the appropriate linear referencing.

Over time, the number of linear and point data events have increased to include water quality data, zebra mussel locations, shoreline regulations and WDFW’s Whole Stream Identifier. Although it is still difficult to keep all events synchronized to current versions of the NHD, the state is beginning to realize benefits from analysis that were not planned for. With resource data tied to a shared surface water dataset, opportunities to quickly leverage that association to meet new initiatives becomes possible as new business needs arise.

AcknowledgementsRealizing the adoption of the NHD as

the state standard and the gathering of the rich collection of linear and point event data available to Washington State was only possible though the work of key individuals. Some of these are: Joy Paulus from the GIS Policy Office within the Washington Office of the Chief Information Officer, who championed adoption of the NHD as the state standard; Andy Weiss and Arleta Agun from the Washington State Department

of Fish and Wildlife; Tyson Waldo with the Northwest Indian Fish Commission and Western Washington University, who provided critical support to bring the fisheries data to the NHD; Tom Carlson, the USGS Washington state geospatial liason who helped secure grant funding to improve the NHD; Rick Jordan, the retired former Washington state NHD steward who initiated many of the projects documented in this paper; Ewan Whitaker, who created the EIM NHD Tool; and Brad McMillan and Dan Saul, who continue to provide NHD support from the Department of Ecology. ■

Anita Stohr istheNHDStewardforWashingtonState.SheworksintheGeographicInformationSystemsUnitwithintheWashingtonDepartmentofEcologyandcoordinatesNHDuseandimprovementsonallstateandprivatelands.Priortoherroleasthestatesteward,sheworkedasaseniorhydrologistperformingwaterqualityandquantitymodeling.

Contact InformationAnita Stohr WA State NHD Hydrography Data Steward, Geospatial and Environmental Systems Support Section Washington State Dept. of Ecology [email protected]

ReferencesOCIO(WashingtonStateOfficeoftheChiefInformationOfficer),2011.Policy161.03HydrographyDataStandard.https://ocio.wa.gov/policies/16000-spatial-data-management-policy-standards/16103-hydrography-data-standard

PSP(PugetSoundPartnership),2015.”ProposedStrategicInitiatives”.

http://www.kitsapregionalcouncil.org/library/C%20-%20KRCC%20Board/2012%20Board/PSP%20Action%20Agenda%20Strategic%20Initiatives.pdf

SeattleTimes,2015.“Federalappealscourthearsfish-blocking-culvertcase”.http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/environment/federal-appeals-court-hears-fish-blocking-culvert-case/,AccessedonFebruary11,2016.

WDFW,2015.SalmonScapeWebMap.http://apps.wdfw.wa.gov/salmonscape/

WDOE,2011a.WatersRequiringSupplementalSpawningandIncubationProtectionforSalmonidSpecies.PublicationNumber06-10-038.RevisedJanuary2011.http://www.ecy.wa.gov/biblio/0610038.html

WDOE,2011b.PugetSoundToxicsAssessment,November2011.https://fortress.wa.gov/ecy/publications/documents/1103060.pdf

Documents

NATIONAL HYDROGRAPHY DATASET (NHD)Modeling the fate and transport of toxic spills in rivers is critical in forecasting the time-of-travel and concentration of contaminants that may