Hydrologic Landscape Characterization for the Pacific Northwest, USA

We update the Wigington et al. (2013) hydrologic landscape (HL) approach to make it more broadly applicable and apply the revised approach to the Pacific Northwest (PNW; i.e., Oregon, Washington, and Idaho). Specific changes incorporated are the use of assessment units based on National Hydrography...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of the American Water Resources Association 2016-04, Vol.52 (2), p.473-493
Main Authors: Leibowitz, Scott G., Comeleo, Randy L., Wigington Jr, Parker J., Weber, Marc H., Sproles, Eric A., Sawicz, Keith A.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Aquifers
Assessments
Catchment area
Catchments
geospatial analysis
Hydrography
hydrologic classification
hydrologic cycle
Hydrology
Landscapes
Mathematical models
National Hydrography Dataset
National Hydrography Dataset, NHD
NHD
Northwest
Pacific Northwest
Permeability
Rivers
rivers/streams
runoff
Seasonal variations
Seasonality
Snowmelt
Soil
Soil (material)
Soil permeability
watersheds
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Summary:We update the Wigington et al. (2013) hydrologic landscape (HL) approach to make it more broadly applicable and apply the revised approach to the Pacific Northwest (PNW; i.e., Oregon, Washington, and Idaho). Specific changes incorporated are the use of assessment units based on National Hydrography Dataset Plus V2 catchments, a modified snowmelt model validated over a broader area, an aquifer permeability index that does not require preexisting aquifer permeability maps, and aquifer and soil permeability classes based on uniform criteria. Comparison of Oregon results for the revised and original approaches found fewer and larger assessment units, loss of summer seasonality, and changes in rankings and proportions of aquifer and soil permeability classes. Differences could be explained by three factors: an increased assessment unit size, a reduced number of permeability classes, and use of smaller cutoff values for the permeability classes. The distributions of the revised HLs in five groups of Oregon rivers were similar to the original HLs but less variable. The improvements reported here should allow the revised HL approach to be applied more often in situations requiring hydrologic classification and allow greater confidence in results. We also apply the map results to the development of hydrologic landscape regions.
ISSN:1093-474X
1752-1688
DOI:10.1111/1752-1688.12402