White Paper
Generating Temperature Prediction Points Along the TauDEM Stream
Network
In Support of
Boise River Basin Spatial-Statistical Stream Temperature Modeling
David E. Nagel
August 23, 2010
U. S. Forest Service
Rocky Mountain Research Station
Boise Aquatic Sciences Laboratory
322 E. Front Street, Suite 401
Boise, ID 83702
Procedures and Methods Disclaimer of Liability
Neither the United States Government nor any of its employees makes any
warranty, express or implied, for any purposes regarding these procedures or
methods. This includes warranties of merchantability and fitness for any
particular purpose. Furthermore, neither the United States Government nor
any of its employees assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the
accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information or products derived
from these procedures.
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Disclaimer of Non-endorsement
Reference herein to any specific commercial products, process, or service by
trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise, does not necessarily
constitute or imply its endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by the
United States Government. The views and opinions of authors expressed
herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of the United States
Government, and shall not be used for advertising or product endorsement
purposes.
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Forward
This white paper describes a method used to generate temperature
prediction points along a synthetic stream network. The points are
approximately evenly spaced along the network at a 1 km interval. The
points were used as geographic receptors for holding modeled stream
temperatures along the network. This document is not a step-by-step guide
for replicating the modeling process but provides an outline of the GIS
processing steps and third party software used.
ESRI (http://www.esri.com/) ArcGIS software and compatible third party
extensions were used for all GIS processing.
The methods described herein are meant to complement the procedures
described in the following paper:
Isaak, Daniel J.; Luce, Charles H.; Rieman, Bruce E.; Nagel, David E.;
Peterson, Erin E.; Horan, Dona L.; Parkes, Sharon; Chandler, Gwynne L.
2010. Effects of climate change and wildfire on stream temperatures and
salmonid thermal habitat in a mountain river network. Ecological
Applications. 20(5): 1350-1371.
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Stream Network
The stream network used in this project was generated from the NED 30 m
DEM data (http://ned.usgs.gov/) using the TauDEM
(http://hydrology.usu.edu/taudem/taudem5.0/index.html) software package.
Guidelines for implementing the TauDEM software can be found here:
http://www.fs.fed.us/GRAIP/downloads/TauDEM_notes.pdf
After the TauDEM stream network was generated the downstream
contributing area attribute (DS_Cont_Ar) was used to eliminate smaller
tributary streams less than 400 HA in size. This process was intended to
preserve only the larger, fish bearing streams.
Prediction Point Generation
Prediction points were generated along the stream network using ET
Geowizards (http://www.ian-ko.com/) software. Points were spaced at a 1
km interval. The following command path was used in ET Geowizards:
Point > Create station points
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The original stream temperature logger location points were merged with the
prediction points to create a complete set containing the observed
temperature (red temperature loggers) and prediction (black) points.
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Creating Distance Matrices
In order to predict temperatures along the stream network at the prediction
points, distance matrices were generated using FLoWS software
(http://www.nrel.colostate.edu/projects/starmap/flows_index.htm).
The distance matrices were input into in a spatial statistical software package
for further processing.
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