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Flow direction grid at 1 kilometer resolution for North Slope drainage basins, Alaska

General Information
Data Package:
Local Identifier:knb-lter-ble.16.2
Title:Flow direction grid at 1 kilometer resolution for North Slope drainage basins, Alaska
Alternate Identifier:DOI PLACE HOLDER
Abstract:
We derived and evaluated a 1 kilometer spatial resolution flow direction grid for the terrestrial drainage of the North Slope of Alaska. The region is resolved by 182,722 grid cells and the associated connectivity. It is bounded by the Brooks Range and Beaufort Sea coast, and extends from the northern Chukchi Sea coast eastward to the small rivers near 140 degrees West. The dataset is provided in raster and tabular format, with the latter including coordinates, river basin identifier, and downstream reach and direction for each grid cell in the region. Over three dozen river basins are identified by name in an associated lookup table. This new mapping resolves the terrestrial drainages for rivers exporting freshwater, nutrients, and other materials to Elson, Simpson, Jago, Kaktovik, and other coastal lagoons at a resolution that captures important processes linked to surface and subsurface hydrological flows. Our analysis suggests that the mapping exhibits notable similarity in basin area boundaries relative to the benchmark USGS National Hydrography Dataset.
Short Name:flow_direction_1km
Publication Date:2020
Language:English

People and Organizations
Contact:Information Manager (Beaufort Lagoon Ecosystems LTER) [  email ]
Organization:Beaufort Lagoon Ecosystems LTER
Creator:Afshari, Shahab (University of Massachusetts Amherst)
Creator:Rawlins, Michael A (University of Massachusetts Amherst)

Data Entities
Data Table Name:
Flow direction grid, tabular format
Description:
Flow direction grid for the North Slope drainage basin, Alaska, 1 km resolution, tabular format
Data Table Name:
Basin name and ID lookup
Description:
River basin names and IDs
Other Name:
Flow direction grid, GeoTIFF format
Description:
Flow direction grid for the North Slope drainage basin, Alaska, 1 km resolution, GeoTIFF format
Detailed Metadata

Data Entities

Data Table

Data:https://pasta-s.lternet.edu/package/data/eml/knb-lter-ble/16/2/a627535b874852b0f1261a3761b8514a
Name:Flow direction grid, tabular format
Description:Flow direction grid for the North Slope drainage basin, Alaska, 1 km resolution, tabular format
Number of Records:182722
Number of Columns:12

Table Structure
Object Name:BLE_LTER_flow_direction_1km_table.csv
Size:19932181 byte
Authentication:f22eeaec5cfa10148c40a4bc07d51505 Calculated By MD5
Text Format:
Number of Header Lines:1
Number of Foot Lines:0
Record Delimiter:\r\n
Orientation:column
Simple Delimited:
Field Delimiter:,
Quote Character:"

Table Column Descriptions
 Cell IDX (m)Y (m)Flow length (m)To CellBasin IDBasin NameLongitudeLatitudeTo LongitudeTo LatitudeFlow Direction
Column Name:CellID  
X  
Y  
FlowLength_m  
ToCell  
BasinID  
BasinName  
Longitude  
Latitude  
ToLongitude  
ToLatitude  
grid_D8  
Definition:Grid cell identifierX coordinate in meters in the EASE Grid 2.0 North projectionY coordinate in meters in the EASE Grid 2.0 North projectionLength of flow path from this cell to the nextDownstream grid cell identifierNumerical basin identifierBasin nameLongitude (WGS 84) of the center of the grid cellLatitude (WGS 84) of the center of the grid cellLongitude (WGS 84) of the center of the cell to which the current cell flowsLatitude (WGS 84) of the center of the cell to which the current cell flowsDownstream flow direction on the eight direction (D8) flow model, coded in increasing powers of two from 1 to 128, starting with 1 in the positive x direction in the EASE Grid 2.0 North projection, moving clockwise
Storage Type:integer  
decimal  
decimal  
decimal  
integer  
integer  
string  
decimal  
decimal  
decimal  
decimal  
integer  
Measurement Type:nominalratioratiorationominalnominalnominalintervalintervalintervalintervalnominal
Measurement Values Domain:
Definitionany text
Unitmeter
Typereal
Unitmeter
Typereal
Unitmeter
Typereal
Definitionany text
Definitionany text
Definitionany text
Unitdegree
Typereal
Unitdegree
Typereal
Unitdegree
Typereal
Unitdegree
Typereal
Definitionany text
Missing Value Code:            
CodeNoName
ExplName not available
          
Accuracy Report:                        
Accuracy Assessment:                        
Coverage:                        
Methods:                        

Data Table

Data:https://pasta-s.lternet.edu/package/data/eml/knb-lter-ble/16/2/15687e8b62b2bfffe40d97085b1ebe98
Name:Basin name and ID lookup
Description:River basin names and IDs
Number of Records:1363
Number of Columns:2

Table Structure
Object Name:BLE_LTER_flow_direction_1km_basin_lookup.csv
Size:19684 byte
Authentication:810fdbef0313af388e1a9572abda4811 Calculated By MD5
Text Format:
Number of Header Lines:1
Number of Foot Lines:0
Record Delimiter:\r\n
Orientation:column
Simple Delimited:
Field Delimiter:,
Quote Character:"

Table Column Descriptions
 Basin IDBasin Name
Column Name:BasinID  
BasinName  
Definition:Numerical basin identifierBasin name
Storage Type:integer  
string  
Measurement Type:nominalnominal
Measurement Values Domain:
Definitionany text
Definitionany text
Missing Value Code:  
CodeNoName
ExplName not available
Accuracy Report:    
Accuracy Assessment:    
Coverage:    
Methods:    

Non-Categorized Data Resource

Name:Flow direction grid, GeoTIFF format
Entity Type:spatial raster
Description:Flow direction grid for the North Slope drainage basin, Alaska, 1 km resolution, GeoTIFF format
Physical Structure Description:
Object Name:BLE_LTER_flow_direction_1km_grid.zip
Size:157748 byte
Authentication:cc2f23269e5bd06285bae0b60d32ef5c Calculated By MD5
Externally Defined Format:
Format Name:application/zip
Data:https://pasta-s.lternet.edu/package/data/eml/knb-lter-ble/16/2/bed8557c8ff1bfa142a75a5b6133c0c1

Data Package Usage Rights

This data package is released to the “public domain” under Creative Commons CC0 1.0 “No Rights Reserved” (see: https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/). It is considered professional etiquette to provide attribution of the original work if this data package is shared or utilized in whole or by individual components. A generic citation is provided for this data package on the website of the repository where these data were obtained in the summary metadata page.

Communication (and collaboration) with the creators of this data package is recommended to prevent duplicate research or publication. The Data User is urged to contact the authors of these data if any questions about methodology or results occur. The Data User should realize that these data may be actively used by others for ongoing research and that coordination may be necessary to prevent duplication or inappropriate use. The Data User should realize that misinterpretation may occur if data are used outside of the context of the original study. The Data User should be aware that periodic updates of this data package may be available from the website and it is the responsibility of the Data User to check for new versions of the data.

While substantial efforts are made to ensure the accuracy of data and associated documentation, complete accuracy cannot be guaranteed. This data package (with its components) is made available “as is” and with no warranty of accuracy or fitness for use. The creators of this data package and the repository where these data were obtained shall not be liable for any damages resulting from misinterpretation, use or misuse of the data package or its components. Thank you.

Keywords

By Thesaurus:
LTER Controlled Vocabulary v1hydrology, rivers, streams
Geographic Names Information SystemAichilik River, Angun River, Beaded Creek, Beaufort Sea, Canning River, Clarence River, Colville River, Craig Creek, Egaksrak River, Ekaluakat River, Firth River, Garry Creek, Igklo River, Jago River, John River, Kagiluak Creek, Kalikpik River, Kalokut Creek, Katakturuk River, Kikolik Creek, Kimikpaurauk River, Kogotpak River, Kongakut River, Kunarak Creek, Kuparuk River, Malcolm River, Marsh Creek, Meade River, Nataroarok Creek, Niguanak River, Nularvik River, Okpilak River, Papigak Creek, Putugook Creek, Sadlerochit River, Sikrelurak River, Siksik River, Singat Creek, Smith River, Staines River, Tamayariak River, Tuapaktushak Creek, Turner River, Walakpa River
BLE LTER Controlled VocabularyBeaufort Lagoon Ecosystems LTER, BLE, LTER

Methods and Protocols

These methods, instrumentation and/or protocols apply to all data in this dataset:

Methods and protocols used in the collection of this data package
Description:

A digital flow direction grid mapping, spanning the North Slope of Alaska at 1 km spatial resolution, was derived from land surface elevations represented by Release 7 of the ArcticDEM (https://www.pgc.umn.edu/data/arcticdem/). The EASE-Grid 2.0 North (Brodzik et al., 2012), based on Lambert's equal-area azimuthal projection, was used as the gridding scheme. To create the grid mapping, elevations at 100 m were resolved to a "deterministic eight neighbors" (D8) flow direction raster (Jenson and Dominigue, 1988). A network scaling algorithm employed in ArcGIS/ArcHydro and R/Rstudio programs was then applied to produce the final 1 km mapping. Flow direction values range from 1 to 128, coded in increasing powers of two, starting from the positive x direction in the EASE Grid coordinate system and moving clockwise. River basin attributes and flow directions were assessed against the USGS National Hydrography Dataset (NHD). Numerical evaluations included comparisons of basin and sub-basin area measures with those from NHD. We also determined the Systematic Normalized Error (SNE; Fekete et al., 2001), defined as the percent of basin area difference from the NHD, relative to the maximum basin area of the digital flow direction grid mapping and NHD. Lastly, the Side-to-Corner (STC; Olivera et al., 2002) ratio was estimated. The STC is a measure of the "evenness" of flow length through the orthogonal and diagonal paths. For instance, given a 1 km resolution mapping, an even flow direction conveys the ratio of flow distance through sides (1000 m) to flow distance through corners (~1414.2135 m) that meets the 59:41 standard. Significant deviation from 59:41 indicates a lower quality mapping. Our analysis suggests that the new 1 km mapping exhibits notable similarity in basin area boundaries relative to the benchmark USGS National Hydrography Dataset network.

References

Brodzik, M. J., B. Billingsley, T. Haran, B. Raup, and M. H. Savoie. 2012. "EASE-Grid 2.0: Incremental but Significant Improvements for Earth-Gridded Data Sets." ISPRS Int. J. Geo-Inf. 1 (1): 32-45. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijgi1010032.

Fekete, B. M., C. J. Vörösmarty, and R. B. Lammers. 2001. "Scaling gridded river networks for macroscale hydrology: Development, analysis, and control of error." 37 (7): 1955-1967. https://doi.org/10.1029/2001WR900024.

Jenson, S. K., and J. O. Dominigue. 1988. "Extracting topographic structure from digital elevation data for Geographic Information System analysis." Photogramm. Eng. Remote Sens. 54: 1593–1600.

Olivera, F., Lear, M. S., Famiglietti, J. S. and Asante, K. 2002. "Extracting low-resolution river networks from high-resolution." Water Resour. Res. 38 (11): 1231. doi:10.1029/2001WR000726.

People and Organizations

Publishers:
Organization:Beaufort Lagoon Ecosystems LTER
Address:
750 Channel View Dr.,
Port Aransas, TX 78373 USA
Email Address:
BLE-IM@utexas.edu
Web Address:
https://ble.lternet.edu/
Creators:
Organization:Beaufort Lagoon Ecosystems LTER
Address:
750 Channel View Dr.,
Port Aransas, TX 78373 USA
Email Address:
BLE-IM@utexas.edu
Web Address:
https://ble.lternet.edu/
Individual: Shahab Afshari
Organization:University of Massachusetts Amherst
Address:
233 Morill Science Center II,
Amherst, MA 01003 USA
Email Address:
safshar00@umass.edu
Id:https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5166-6721
Individual: Michael A Rawlins
Organization:University of Massachusetts Amherst
Address:
233 Morill Science Center II,
Amherst, MA 01003 USA
Email Address:
rawlins@geo.umass.edu
Id:https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3323-8256
Contacts:
Organization:Beaufort Lagoon Ecosystems LTER
Position:Information Manager
Address:
MC R8000 The University of Texas at Austin,
Austin, TX 78712 USA
Email Address:
BLE-IM@utexas.edu
Web Address:
https://ble.lternet.edu/
Metadata Providers:
Organization:Beaufort Lagoon Ecosystems LTER
Address:
750 Channel View Dr.,
Port Aransas, TX 78373 USA
Email Address:
BLE-IM@utexas.edu
Web Address:
https://ble.lternet.edu/

Temporal, Geographic and Taxonomic Coverage

Temporal, Geographic and/or Taxonomic information that applies to all data in this dataset:
Geographic Region:
Description:North Slope drainage basin: Bounding box encompasses the North Slope drainage basin, Alaska, USA.
Bounding Coordinates:
Northern:  71.344000Southern:  67.739000
Western:  -160.786000Eastern:  -136.686000

Project

Parent Project Information:

Title:LTER: Beaufort Sea Lagoons: An Arctic Coastal Ecosystem in Transition
Personnel:
Individual: Kenneth Dunton
Organization:The University of Texas at Austin, Marine Science Institute
Phone:
361-749-6744 (voice)
Email Address:
ken.dunton@utexas.edu
Id:https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3498-8021
Role:Lead Principal Investigator
Individual: James McClelland
Organization:The University of Texas at Austin, Marine Science Institute
Phone:
361-749-6756 (voice)
Email Address:
jimm@utexas.edu
Id:https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9619-8194
Role:Co-Lead Principal Investigator
Individual: Byron Crump
Organization:Oregon State University
Email Address:
bcrump@coas.oregonstate.edu
Id:https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7062-1273
Role:Co-Principal Investigator
Individual: Amber Hardison
Organization:Virginia Institute of Marine Science, College of William & Mary
Email Address:
akhardison@vims.edu
Id:https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0891-3731
Role:Co-Principal Investigator
Individual: Katrin Iken
Organization:University of Alaska Fairbanks
Email Address:
kbiken@alaska.edu
Id:https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7961-1012
Role:Co-Principal Investigator
Individual: Jeremy Kasper
Organization:University of Alaska Fairbanks
Email Address:
jlkasper@alaska.edu
Id:https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0975-6114
Role:Co-Principal Investigator
Individual: Vanessa Lougheed
Organization:The University of Texas at El Paso
Email Address:
vlougheed@utep.edu
Id:https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6091-1151
Role:Co-Principal Investigator
Individual: Andrew Mahoney
Organization:University of Alaska Fairbanks
Email Address:
armahoney@alaska.edu
Id:https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8699-3175
Role:Co-Principal Investigator
Individual: Bailey McMeans
Organization:University of Toronto Missisauga
Email Address:
bailey.mcmeans@utoronto.ca
Id:https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9793-6811
Role:Co-Principal Investigator
Individual: Michael Rawlins
Organization:University of Massachusetts Amherst
Email Address:
rawlins@geo.umass.edu
Id:https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3323-8256
Role:Co-Principal Investigator
Individual: Yvette Spitz
Organization:Oregon State University
Email Address:
yspitz@coas.oregonstate.edu
Id:https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6026-4900
Role:Co-Principal Investigator
Individual: Craig Tweedie
Organization:The University of Texas at El Paso
Email Address:
ctweedie@utep.edu
Id:https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3409-8881
Role:Co-Principal Investigator
Individual: Christina Bonsell
Organization:The University of Texas at Austin
Email Address:
cbonsell@utexas.edu
Id:https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8564-0618
Role:Project Manager
Individual: Nathan McTigue
Organization:The University of Texas at Austin
Email Address:
mctigue@utexas.edu
Id:https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7686-7095
Role:Project Manager
Individual: Timothy Whiteaker
Organization:The University of Texas at Austin
Email Address:
whiteaker@utexas.edu
Id:https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1940-4158
Role:Information Manager
Individual: An T. Nguyen
Organization:The University of Texas at Austin
Email Address:
enthusiast@utexas.edu
Id:https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6519-0173
Role:Information Manager
Abstract:

This project established a new Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) site along the Alaskan Arctic coastline. Research based out of Utqiagvik (formerly Barrow), Deadhorse, and Kaktovik will address how changes in shoreline erosion and freshwater inflows to the coastal ocean over seasonal, annual, and longer timeframes influence near-shore food webs. Research will be conducted in collaboration with local stakeholder groups and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. This research will advance our fundamental understanding of how input of materials from land and oceanographic conditions interact to influence coastal food webs. It will also allow us to track and understand: 1) how natural climate cycles influence coastal ecosystems in the Arctic, and 2) how climate change effects such as permafrost thaw, shifting precipitation regimes, and losses of sea ice alter coastal ecosystems. Near-shore food webs along the Alaskan Arctic coastline support large populations of migratory fish and waterfowl that are essential to the culture of Iñupiat communities of northern Alaska. The research at this LTER site will create a framework for anticipating the impacts of future changes on the coastal ecosystem that are of great concern to these communities. Results from this LTER program will also be of interest to a broader science community that is working to understand potential connections between Arctic change and global carbon cycling. Finally, this LTER project includes a strong commitment to education through graduate and undergraduate student involvement, post-doctoral mentoring, continuation of a very successful Summer Science K-12 Program in Kaktovik, and establishment of a parallel K-12 program in Utqiagvik. In addition, this project will employ native high school seniors or recently graduated students living in Utqiagvik and Kaktovik as field research assistants.

Recent studies suggest that the ecological framework for understanding what controls food web structure needs to be expanded to include temporal forcing. More specifically, there is mounting evidence that differential availability of seasonally-distinct resources is critical for defining trophic linkages and maintaining stability and resilience of food webs. This new LTER program will use lagoons along the Alaskan Beaufort Sea coast as experimental units to test this concept, and broaden it to include temporal variations over longer timeframes. The Beaufort lagoons are ideal for testing this concept because they experience extreme variability in seasonal cycles, which are now subject to rapid directional shifts driven by climate change. Our overarching question is: How do variations in terrestrial inputs, local production, and exchange between lagoon and ocean waters over seasonal, inter-annual, inter-decadal, and longer timeframes interact to control food web structure through effects on carbon and nitrogen cycling, microbial and metazoan community composition, and trophic linkages? Arctic lagoons provide a unique opportunity to study these interactions in the absence of fringing wetlands that often modulate land-ocean interactions in other lagoon systems. In addition, barrier island geomorphology, which exerts a strong control on water exchange between lagoons and the open ocean, is highly dynamic in the Arctic because sea-ice effects on coastal geomorphology are superimposed on the effects of currents, sea level, and waves. Thus, connections between inputs from land and lagoon ecosystems are more direct, and water exchanges between lagoons and the open ocean are more variable than is typical of lower latitude systems. Specific study sites will be located in Elson Lagoon (western Beaufort), Simpson Lagoon and Stefansson Sound (central Beaufort), and Kaktovik and Jago lagoons (eastern Beaufort). The LTER will include seasonal field work during ice covered, ice break-up, and open water periods and also include sensor deployments for continuous measurements of key biogeochemical and hydrographic parameters.

Funding:

BLE LTER is supported by the National Science Foundation under award #1656026 (2017-08-01 to 2022-07-31).

Additional Award Information:
Funder:National Science Foundation
Funder ID:http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/100000001
Number:1656026
Title:LTER: Beaufort Sea Lagoons: An Arctic Coastal Ecosystem in Transition
URL:https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1656026

Maintenance

Maintenance:
Description:No regular updates anticipated.
Frequency:notPlanned
Other Metadata

Additional Metadata

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