EDI Staging Environment
Knowing the degree of surface water connectivity among aquatic ecosystems can help scientists better understand and predict the movement of materials and biota across ecosystems. Methods to quantify surface water networks that include lake and stream connections at broad spatial scales are rare because it is difficult to balance accurate estimates of surface water connectivity and computational challenges. The LAGOS-US NETWORKS (NETS) module contains surface connectivity metrics for lake networks across the conterminous United States. We applied a graph theory approach to identify lake networks (i.e. a set of lakes connected by streams either upstream, downstream, or both) created from the medium resolution NHD lakes, streams, and rivers and subsequently derive surface water connectivity metrics for lakes and networks. Using this approach, we created a total of 898 networks that include 86,511 lakes. The NETS module includes a table with metrics for connections between lakes (both upstream and downstream), dams, network position, and whole networks. NETS also includes a flow table and bidirectional and unidirectional distance tables that provide the distances between every pair of connected lakes.
EDI is a collaboration between the University of New Mexico and the University of Wisconsin – Madison, Center for Limnology:
