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Source: https://www.usgs.gov/national-hydrography/watershed-boundary-dataset

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Watershed Boundary Dataset

By National Hydrography The Watershed Boundary Dataset is used broadly in applications from scientific research to regulatory work. It is a companion dataset to the National Hydrography Dataset (NHD) and a component of the NHDPlus High Resolution (NHDPlus HR).

Watershed Boundary Dataset Data Model (v2.3.1) Explore the feature classes, attribute tables and domains contained within the Watershed Boundary Dataset. See the Model

Federal Standards and Procedures for the National WBD (5th ed, 2022) A cover image of the WBD Standards with crediting information and text, displaying a fork in the Penobscot River in Maine This document establishes Federal standards and procedures for creating the WBD as seamless and hierarchical hydrologic unit data, based on topographic and hydrologic features. Read More

More Information * WBD Data Downloads and Services * US-Canada Transboundary Data Harmonization Information * WBD FGDC Historical State Metadata Archive

The Watershed Boundary Dataset (WBD) is a seamless, national hydrologic unit dataset. Hydrologic units represent the area of the landscape that drains to a portion of the stream network. More specifically, a hydrologic unit defines the areal extent of surface water drainage to an outlet point on a dendritic stream network or to multiple outlet points where the stream network is not dendritic. A hydrologic unit may represent all or only part of the total drainage area to an outlet point so that multiple hydrologic units may be required to define the entire drainage area at a given outlet. Hydrologic unit boundaries in the WBD are determined based on topographic, hydrologic, and other relevant landscape characteristics without regard for administrative, political, or jurisdictional boundaries. The WBD seamlessly represents hydrologic units at six required and two optional hierarchical levels. Media Watershed Boundary Dataset structure visualization Sources/Usage: Public Domain. View Media Details Watershed Boundary Dataset structure(Public domain.) The hydrologic units (HU) in the WBD form a standardized system for organizing, collecting, managing, and reporting hydrologic information for the nation. The HUs in the WBD are arranged in a nested, hierarchical system with each HU in the system identified using a unique code. Hydrologic unit codes (HUC) are developed using a progressive two-digit system where each successively smaller areal unit is identified by adding two digits to the identifying code the smaller unit is nested within. WBD contains eight levels of progressive hydrologic units identified by unique 2- to 16-digit codes. The dataset is complete for the United States to the 12-digit hydrologic unit. The 14- and 16-digit hydrologic units are optional and are not complete for the nation. Efforts to complete the 10- and 12-digit unit delineations within 8-digit hydrologic units extending across the U.S. – Canada border are complete. Additional information about this effort and access to data is linked on the “resources” section on this page. A similar effort is complete for the 10- and 12-digit units extending across the U.S. – Mexico border. The WBD team is pleased to announce the publication of the authoritative WBD snapshot. This snapshot of the WBD includes various edits and improvements to the attribution and geometry of the WBD and captures any outstanding WBD user edits that were incorporated into the national dataset in the past fiscal year. This snapshot of the WBD dataset should be referenced as the authoritative snapshot of the dataset while the program shifts focus to the new 3DHP data model and can be downloaded here. Please relay any questions to Kimberly Jones (kjones@usgs.gov) and Lily Niknami (lniknami@usgs.gov). Was this page helpful? A red asterisk (*) indicates a required field.

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