Surface Water Trends for the Conterminous United States using monthly DSWEmod Surface Water Maps, 2003–2019

Description

The Dynamic Surface Water Extent MODIS (DSWEmod) surface water maps for the conterminous United States were used for a study conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Patterns in the Landscape - Analyses of Cause and Effect (PLACE) team quantifying seasonal and annual surface water trends within Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Level I and Level III Ecoregions (Omernik, 1987) across the U.S. from 2003 through 2019. The overarching objectives of this study were to, (i) generate the monthly DSWEmod maps for the conterminous United States, (ii) review the spatial and temporal dynamics of surface water extent across ecoregions, and (iii) compare surface water area trends to streamgage discharge trends to determine where and how well different approaches to measuring water dynamics align. The DSWEmod model classifies the landscape (i.e., each 250-meter Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, or MODIS, pixel) into different classes of surface water based on quantified levels of confidence, including, (i) high-confidence surface water (class 1), (ii) moderate-confidence surface water (class 2), (iii) potential wetland (class 3), and (iv) low-confidence water/wetland (class 4), as well as a not-water class (class 0) and a no-data class (class 9). The confidence level is based on thresholds within various water- and vegetation-based indices. The level of confidence is based on how many, and, which index thresholds are met. Only high-confidence surface water (class 1) was considered in this study. This data release includes a vector shapefile consisting of 85 polygons, delineating EPA Level III Ecoregions for the conterminous United States. For each Level III Ecoregion, we include attributes identifying, (i) their respective Level I Ecoregion name and identification number, (ii) quantified seasonal and overall mean water area, (iii) comparisons with U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) National Water Information System (NWIS) streamgage discharge trends, (iv) mean surface water extent statistics (mean, minimum, maximum, standard deviation, coefficient of variation, percent of ecoregion), and (v) seasonal and overall results from the Mann-Kendall statistical analysis. An associated manuscript describes the methodology, results, and conclusions from this study.

Resources

Name Format Description Link
55 The metadata original format https://data.usgs.gov/datacatalog/metadata/USGS.60b7b2fed34e86b938872434.xml
55 Landing page for access to the data https://doi.org/10.5066/P9UMFBDE

Tags

  • surface-water
  • dynamic-surface-water-extent
  • mann-kendall-trend-analysis
  • sens-slope
  • conterminous-united-states
  • level-i-ecoregions
  • usgs-60b7b2fed34e86b938872434
  • level-iii-ecoregions
  • moderate-resolution-imaging-spectroradiometer-modis

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