Topographic points surveyed in 2018-19 for step-backwater analysis, in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico

This data release provides topographic (horizontal and vertical) data for 58 sites, surveyed March 12, 2018 to July 18, 2019 as part of documentation of flooding that occurred in Puerto Rico during and after Hurricane Maria (September to November 2017). Hurricane Maria made landfall on the Island of Puerto Rico on September 20, 2017 and was one of the deadliest storms in U.S. history. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) personnel conducted topographic surveys at selected stream sites for hydraulic modeling studies to establish new stage-discharge relations for sites at which flooding substantially changed the pre-existing relation. The standard-step hydraulic method, often referred to as the step-backwater method, is a widely accepted and easily applied one-dimensional hydraulic model to determine (theoretical) water-surface elevations at a location of interest for specified streamflows. This method is mostly used by the USGS to develop rating curves at streamgage sites either at newly installed streamgages or sites where the channel morphology has changed, and the previously-established rating curve is no longer applicable.