Adam Beam
Exercise 1
NHDplus
Due Date: January. 27 Submit your report file in the “Drop Box” in the Sakai GEOG591 course directory. If
your ONYEN ID is smith, name the report file as ex1_smith_report.doc. In your report, include maps which
are produced by each process and your interpretation.
You are hired by the local towns to find all reaches of stream that have
Upstream drainage areas that are heavily urbanized (defined as exceeding 20%), and all stream reaches
that have local contributing catchment areas that exceed 20%,
Those that have local urban drainage areas but not cumulative upstream urban areas (e.g. Morgan Creek
below the dam), and
Those that have cumulative urbanized upstream areas, but local catchment areas that are not urban.
Those that have high stream discharge (defined as mean annual flow exceeding 30 cfs).
Dataset: Find all files in
Catchment_Flowline_Attributes: all NHD flowline and catchment attributes
Nhdflowline_NH: NHD flowlines subsampled for the New Hope area
Catchment_NH: NHD catchments subsampled for the New Hope area
Nhdwaterbody_NH: NHD waterbodies subsampled for the New Hope area
NH_watershed: upper and lower New Hope area watershed boundary
Step 1. Analyzing urban area
Load the catchment_NH, nhdflowline_NH and nhdwaterbody_NH shapefiles
Join the flowlineattributesnlcd.dbf and the catchmentattributesnlcd.dbf to the nhdflowline_NH shapefile
Open the nhdflowline_NH attribute table and look through the joined variables
Select for the nhdflowline_NH reaches that have all urban areas (NLCD 21, 22, 23) summed to greater than
20%. Save your result as a new shape file by right clicking the nhdflowline_NH � Data �export – name
(e.g., urban_stream.shp) and save to your workspace.
Adam Beam
Clear your selection
Reselect for the nhdflowline_NH reaches that have cumulative urban areas (CUMNLCD 21, 22, 23)
summed to greater than 20%. Save this outcome as well (e.g., cumurban_stream.shp).
Now select reaches that are greater than 20% cumulative urban upstream, but not greater than 20% urban
(in the local catchment). Save this outcome as well (e.g., cumurban_nourban_stream.shp).
Save three separate maps for each of these selections.
Question 1. Describe those areas in New Hope area that fall into each class.

Urban areas (NLCD 21, 22, 23) summed to greater than 20%
o These areas are found along Bolin Creek, including the Cedar Fork and Crow Branch; Sandy
Creek; Third Fork Creek; and Mud Creek. These are the areas that flow into the New Hope
Creek.
Adam Beam
(This map shows streams running through heavily urbanized catchment areas. These are mainly to the
north of Jordan lake, with a large group to the east, that doesn’t not flow directly into the lake and the
New Hope watershed. )
 Cumulative urban areas (CUMNLCD 21, 22, 23) summed to greater than 20%
o Cumulative urban areas greater than 20% in the New Hope area are found along New
Hope Creek, Little Creek, Crooked Creek, Booker Creek, Bolin Creek, Third Fork Creek,
Northeast Creek, and Sandy Creek.
Adam Beam
(This map shows the streams running through heavily urbanized drainage areas. Like the urban catchment
areas, these are mainly to the north and east, with the areas in the east not flowing into Jordan Lake
through the New Hope watershed.)

Cumulative urban areas > 20% and Urban areas < 20%
o These areas with Cumulative urban areas greater than 20% and less than 20% urban areas
are found along Little Creek, New Hope Creek, northern parts of Crooked Creek, lower
sections of Third Fork Creek , and Northeast Creek.
Adam Beam
(This map shows the streams flowing through heavily urbanized drainage areas that are not flowing
through heavily urbanized catchment areas. This means that these streams are getting drainage waters
from urbanized areas but now flowing directly through the urbanized catchments. These areas are directly
to the north of Jordan Lake. ) In conclusion, New Hope area, one of the main drainage areas of
Jordan Lake can be characterized as urbanized area when considering the whole upstream area of
New Hope creek (-1.0).
2. Analyzing mean annual flow
1. Join the flowlineattributesflow.dbf to the nhdflowline_NH shapefile.
2. Select for the nhdflowline_NH reaches that have mean annual flow greater than 30 cfs.
Adam Beam
3. Save this outcome as well (e.g., stream_meanflow_30.shp).
(This map shows the streams around Jordan lake that have a mean annual flow of over 30 cubic feet per
second, meaning that Jordan lake receives a lot of water from these input streams.)
Question 2. Comparing step 1 results, which urban area correspond to high stream discharge area? What
does this mean in terms of water quantity and quality problem of not only watershed itself but also
Jordan Lake?
The urban areas with high mean annual flow (greater than 30 cubic feet per second) are found along New
Hope Creek/Third Fork Creek and Northeast Creek. That means that if pollutants are found in this streams,
they will pollute the watershed and Jordan Lake much faster, creating a large quantity and quality
problem, since a large portion of the water might be unusable. Also, if these streams become blocked by
urban development, the water in the watershed and Jordan Lake will probably decline as a result.
Feel free to ask any question to Yuri Kim (yuri513@email.unc.edu.)
Adam Beam
NLCD = catchment area (Low Intensity residential, high intensity residential, and
Commercial/Industrial/Transportation in NLCD)
CUMNLCD = Cumulative drainage area (21, 22, 23 are Low intensity residential, high intensity residential,
and Commercial/Industrial/Transportation in NLCD)
MAFlowU = Mean Annual Flow in cubic feet per second (cfs) at bottom of flowline
1. Heavily Urbanized Catchment Area Streams
2. Cumulative Heavily Urbanized Drainage Area Streams
3. Urbanized Cumulative Drainage Area Streams Not in Urban Catchment Areas
Your maps are not easy to recognize (-2.0).
(22/25)