The National Hydrographic Infrastructure (NHI) and Hydrolink Tool

National Hydrography Advisory Call:

This episode features speakers Al Rea, Becci Anderson, Mike Tinker (USGS National Hydrography Team) and Daniel Wieferich (USGS Science Analytics and Synthesis) The National Hydrographic Infrastructure (NHI) is an information infrastructure combining foundational hydrography datasets with the capabilities of addressing. The concept here is to provide an infrastructure for sharing any kind of surface water related data, that would underpin various agency efforts concerned with hydro observations and modeling. Daniel discusses the HydroLink tool developed with support of the USGS Fisheries program. One of the main drivers of the HydroLink tool was to help encourage USGS scientists and our partners to linear reference and/or address their data to two commonly used versions of the National Hydrography data set and then to share that information as a common resource to start building up our collective knowledge of the stream networks.

Hydrography for the Nation:

High-quality hydrography data are critical to a broad range of government and private applications. Resource management, infrastructure planning, environmental monitoring, fisheries management, and disaster mitigation all depend on up-to-date, accurate, and high-quality hydrographic data. The U.S. Geological Survey National Geospatial Program National Hydrography Advisory Call has initiated a series of virtual seminars to highlight the uses of hydrographic data. These presentations are intended to share success stories from users who have solved real world problems using hydrography data, provide information about the National Hydrography Dataset and related products. The USGS manages surface water and hydrologic unit mapping for the Nation as geospatial datasets. These include the National Hydrography Dataset (NHD), Watershed Boundary Dataset (WBD), and NHDPlus High Resolution (NHDPlus HR). Hydrography data are integral to a myriad of mission critical activities undertaken and managed by government entities (Federal, State, regional, county, local, Tribal), nonprofit organizations, and private companies.

For more detailed information on national hydrography products visit https://usgs.gov/NHD