Attributes for NHDPlus Catchments (Version 1.1) for the Conterminous United States: STATSGO Soil Characteristics

This data set represents estimated soil variables compiled for every catchment of NHDPlus 
for the conterminous United States. The variables included are cation exchange capacity, 
percent calcium carbonate, slope, water-table depth, soil thickness, hydrologic soil group, 
soil erodibility (k-factor), permeability, average water capacity, bulk density, percent organic 
material, percent clay, percent sand, and percent silt. The source data set is the State Soil 
( STATSGO ) Geographic Database (Wolock, 1997).
		
The NHDPlus Version 1.1 is an integrated suite of application-ready geospatial datasets that 
incorporates many of the best features of the National Hydrography Dataset (NHD) and the 
National Elevation Dataset (NED). The NHDPlus includes a stream network (based on the 
1:100,00-scale NHD), improved networking, naming, and value-added attributes (VAAs). 
NHDPlus also includes elevation-derived catchments (drainage areas) produced using a 
drainage enforcement technique first widely used in New England, and thus referred to as 
"the New England Method." This technique involves "burning in" the 1:100,000-scale NHD 
and when available building "walls" using the National Watershed Boundary Dataset (WBD). 
The resulting modified digital elevation model (HydroDEM) is used to produce hydrologic 
derivatives that agree with the NHD and WBD. Over the past two years, an interdisciplinary 
team from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), and the U.S. Environmental Protection 
Agency (USEPA), and contractors, found that this method produces the best quality NHD 
catchments using an automated process (USEPA, 2007). The NHDPlus dataset is organized 
by 18 Production Units that cover the conterminous United States.
		
The NHDPlus version 1.1 data are grouped by the U.S. Geologic Survey's  Major River Basins 
(MRBs, Crawford and others, 2006).  MRB1, covering the New England and Mid-Atlantic River 
basins, contains NHDPlus Production Units 1 and 2.  MRB2, covering the South Atlantic-Gulf 
and Tennessee River basins, contains NHDPlus Production Units 3 and 6.  MRB3, covering 
the Great Lakes, Ohio, Upper Mississippi, and Souris-Red-Rainy River basins, contains NHDPlus 
Production Units 4, 5, 7 and 9.  MRB4, covering the Missouri River basins, contains NHDPlus 
Production Units 10-lower and 10-upper.  MRB5, covering the Lower Mississippi, 
Arkansas-White-Red, and Texas-Gulf River basins, contains NHDPlus Production Units 8, 11 
and 12.  MRB6, covering the Rio Grande, Colorado and Great Basin River basins, contains 
NHDPlus Production Units 13, 14, 15 and 16.  MRB7, covering the Pacific Northwest River 
basins, contains NHDPlus Production Unit 17.  MRB8, covering California River basins, 
contains NHDPlus Production Unit 18.

Tags: cali, california, catchment, cogb, conterminous-united-states, elevation, geoscientificinformation, glmr, great-lakes-ohio-upper-mississippi-and-souris-red-rainy, inlandwaters, lmtg, lower-mississippi-arkansas-white-red-and-texas-gulf, major-river-basin, missouri, mori, mrb, mrb1, mrb2, mrb3, mrb4, mrb5, mrb6, mrb7, mrb8, nawqa, nema, new-england-and-mid-atlantic, nhdplus, pacific-northwest, panw, rio-grande-colorado-and-great-basin, sagt, south-atlantic-gulf-and-tennessee, sparrow, statsgo, usgs-e199cac0-b34e-4043-9f2a-820bc2890799
Organization: Department of the Interior