A Vision for Stewardship of the Watershed Boundary

A Vision for Stewardship of the Watershed Boundary Dataset (WBD) Overview of WBD Philosophy of WBD stewardship Differences and commonalities with NHD USGS roles for WBD integration with NHD Challenges Current stewardship initiatives SUMMARY-Value, implications, goals of NHD/WBD integration Karen Hanson, USGS Dan Wickwire, BLM NHD/WBD Stewardship Conference April 2009

Need for one common (authoritative) hydrologic unit dataset Ø Delineations of hydrologic unit boundaries prior to 2000 were “stove pipe” type efforts Ø State and federal agencies were expending large budgets to create often redundant and inconsistent datasets Ø One nationally consistent, hierarchical, and larger scale dataset was needed that would meet both federal and state requirements for both analysis and programmatic reporting Ø Guidelines were developed by NRCS and USGS along with other interagency partners to support the certification program to achieve this goal

The Watershed Boundary Dataset Ø Defines the aerial extent of water drainage to a point Ø Establishes a base-line drainage boundary framework, accounting for all land surface areas Ø Topographically defined dataset impartial to administrative units, special projects, particular programs, or any one agency Ø Delineates and georeferences the hydrologic units to USGS topographic maps, meeting the National Standards for Spatial Data Accuracy (NSSDA) l 1: 24, 000 scale, lower 48 states and Hawaii l 1: 25, 000 scale, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands l 1: 63, 360 scale, Alaska Ø Uses Digital Orthophoto Quarter Quadrangles (DOQQs) or higher resolution imagery, contours of elevation, stream locations and other relevant data to improve the accuracy or currency of the hydrologic unit boundaries

www. ncgc. nrcs. usda. gov/products/datasets/watershed

Federal Guidelines, Requirements, and Procedures for the National Watershed Boundary Dataset Techniques and Methods http: //pubs. usgs. gov/tm/tm 11 a 3/ 2008

WBD Delivery of “certified” data http: //datagateway. nrcs. usda. gov/

National (managerial component) Steering Committee: l USGS • CHAIR-Katherine Lins (Chief Office of Water Information-Headquarters) • Jeff Simley (NHD Program Manager) • David Mc. Culloch (Office of Water-Headquarters) l NRCS • Jerry Harlow (Director of National Cartography & Geospatial Center (NCGC)-Ft. Worth) • Steven Nechero (Technology Application Team Leader, NCGC-Ft. Worth) l EPA • Wendy Blake-Coleman (Office of Environmental Information-Headquarters) • Tommy Dewald (USEPA Office of Water-Headquarters) l l USFS • Ted Geier (Staff Hydrologist Air, Water, Lands, Soils, Minerals & Environmental Services, Region 9) BLM • Jim Renthal (Soil, Water, Air Program Leader-Headquarters)

Ø USGS Project manager; national technical coordinator: l Ø National Technical Review office: l Ø NRCS • Laura Davenport (Geographer-National Cartographic and Geospatial Center, Ft. Worth, TX) Mid Atlantic Coordinator: l Ø USGS • Karen Hanson (Physical Scientist-Salt Lake City) EPA • Don Evans (GIS Team Leader-EPAR 3) National liaison: l l EPA • Milo Anderson (GIS Coordinator-EPAR 5) Other: • • NCGC-NRCS USGS-Salt Lake City, EPA R 3 -R 5, WYGISC-U of WY USGS Administrative staff USGS staff, Wendy Danchuk and others, in Madison Wisconsin, working on the updated standards

Agencies with WBD Stewardship lead

WBD Stewardship Philosophy (A few years ago our stakeholders started asking for this) A need……. For continued consistency, data integrity, and quality of this “certified dataset” that adheres to national guidelines in order to meet programmatic and reporting needs Ø For continued coordination to ensure that WBD remains the single recognized hydrologic unit dataset vs. multiple stove piped datasets Ø To enhance WBD by recognizing the importance of, and incorporating local on-the-ground knowledge as the dataset is used Ø To protect an estimated $20 million investment and keep maintenance costs down

WBD Stewardship Philosophy (cont’d) A plan that……. Ø Recognizes stewardship roles and responsibilities at both the national and in-state levels l l Ø NATIONAL: • Provides program leadership and management • Works with state stewards to ensure success of WBD stewardship objectives • Ensure “certification” integrity is maintained • Assist with technical issues • Support successful integration of NHD and WBD stewardship STATE: • Coordinate all stewardship activities within state l Local stewards, interagency partners • Work with national data set managers and stewards to ensure success of WBD stewardship objectives • Support successful integration of NHD and WBD stewardship More details on Thursday (Dan, Mark)………. .

WBD Stewardship Philosophy (cont’d) A plan that……. . Ø Fosters communication and collaboration at all levels of stewardship Ø Ensures availability of dataset for stewardship, analysis, mapping, and reporting activities Ø Works with the NHD stewardship community to implement integration of stewardship for the NHD and WBD Ø Facilitates integration with other data framework layers

WBD Stewardship Challenges Ø Develop a common understanding of roles and responsibilities, and sustainable agency support of those roles Ø Look at synchronizing terminology with A-16 supplemental guidance Ø Design and implement a fully integrated approach to stewardship of NHD and WBD both at the national and state level Ø Implement a stewardship program that: • • Meets stakeholder needs during NHD/WBD integration phase Prepares stakeholders for the fully integrated environment Satisfies the certification requirement of the WBD Satisfies the needs of the 50 states, and U. S. territories

WBD and NHD Stewardship Differences Ø WBD is a nationally “certified” dataset where national guidelines need to be applied to ensure a high level of national consistency for the user community Ø NRCS and USGS share joint national responsibility for the WBD, whereas USGS is the national steward for the NHD Ø The in-state NHD and WBD stewardship agencies and organizations are not always the same

Percentage of states which have a dual WBD/NHD Steward

WBD and NHD Stewardship Differences (cont’d) Ø WBD provides a consistent programmatic framework for many agencies. Impact to ongoing reporting systems must be considered with any changes to the data Ø Edgematching-there as many polygons on borders as internal to states Ø All linework placement within the WBD is highly coordinated and negotiated between in-state partners l For example…………. .

WBD and NHD Stewardship Commonalities Ø Both have state based principal stewardship Ø Both rely on collaboration between partners at the local, state and national level Ø Both have the goal of maximizing return on investment of development and stewardship costs Ø Both benefit by increased level of vertical integration and spatial integration Ø Both benefit from a synergistic implementation of stewardship

WBD Maintenance Simplified Process Workflow WBD User Determines That Edit is Needed WBD User Submits Change Request To State Steward Coordinates with All Partners State Steward Submits Edit to National Steward State Steward Performs Edit on National Database State Steward Accepts or Rejects Proposed Change USGS/NRCS National Stewards Performs QA/QC Accepts or Rejects Edit National Database Steward Posts Successful Edits to WBD National Steward Notifies State Steward and WBD User Community

Delivery Ø Once fully integrated the NHD and WBD will be jointly housed in Denver, and Denver will be the interface node for stewardship maintenance transactions Ø The NRCS will house a replicate of this database for distribution only Ø Sites that customers will obtain NHD and/or WBD data through (1) The National Map, (2) the NRCS Data Gateway, and (3) a hydrography specific web site (http: //nhd. usgs. gov), (4) state repositories that are developed to meet state based requirements Ø Users will have several options for downloading from the national repositories. This will include (1) NHD-WBD options, (2) areas of coverage, and (3) levels of hierarchy Ø Added value attributes may be available within WBD datasets residing on State delivery sites

USGS Personnel Structure to accommodate integration of WBD with NHD Program Manager: Jeff Simley l l l Overall project decisions Keep projects on track Ensure program objective are met Keep stakeholders abreast of progress Define resource needs Responsible for programmatic long-term planning and implementation

USGS WBD Personnel (cont’d): WBD Project Lead: Stephen Daw, NGTOC-Denver l l Technical implementation, transaction posting and update and editing processes and software Manage day-to-day activities of the project and will assure milestones are met Assist with Stewardship activities WBD edit training WBD Program Manager: Karen Hanson, USGS Water Resources l l Assure objectives of the WBD program are maintained Along with NRCS, provide National QA/QC review on WBD edits Implementation of a WBD stewardship program combined with the NHD stewardship program Supplemental guidance protocol development Hydrography Section Chief: Paul Kimsey, USGS-NGTOC l l Responsible for maintaining the integrity of the NHD stewardship program Assuring that WBD stewardship operations are fully assimilated into a joint program Others…

State Stewardship Work Group (SSWG) Meet Bi-monthly to discuss all aspects of Stewardship: Dave Brower Natural Resources Conservation Service State of Washington Dan Wickwire Bureau of Land Management State of Oregon Linda Davis Idaho Department of Water Resources State of Idaho Karen Hanson U. S. Geological Survey National WBD Technical Coordinator Ann Fritz North Dakota Department of Health David Anderson NHD POC (previous Florida State Department of Environement) Steve Nechero Natural Resources Conservation Service National Cartography & Geospatial Center

Stewardship issues being addressed by SSWG: • WBD Issue Paper • NHD/WBD Stewardship Roles and Responsibilities • Using High Resolution for WBD improvement • Hydrologic unit names • 7 th and 8 th level umbrella guidance • Spatial integration of WBD with NHD • Coastal Pilot

Geospatial Line of Business-Data Lifecycle Stages April 6, 2009 completed the evaluation documentation criteria for WBD-requirements Define Archive Inventory/ Evaluate Business-driven User needs Obtain collect/create Use/Evaluate Validate/Enhance Maintain Access

SUMMARY Benefits of a joint WBD/NHD l l l NHD and the WBD naturally complement each other Both are used extensively in hydrology, biology, resource management, and pollution control Improves interoperability of the two datasets, and for users A single hydrography geodatabase facilitates all aspects of joint stewardship of the two feature databases-NHD and WBD • Joint data distribution services • Joint stewardship operations • Joint program management • Combined operations to the extent possible Many positive outcomes to have WBD become part of The National Map (TNM) NHD Geo. Edit tool could accommodate WBD edits and provide feature level metadata tracking

SUMMARY Goals of a joint NHD/WBD l l Integration at all levels: • Programmatic • Operational • Technical • Science Ensure future efforts are planned and implemented in tandem