CLIMATE DATA EXCHANGE AND MANAGEMENT RUSSIA - USA FIRST SET OF U.S. STREAMFLOW DATA 3 July 1995 Project 02.08 - 14 organized under: WORKING GROUP VIII RUSSIA - USA Joint Committee On Cooperation in the Field of Environmental Protection The streamflow record for 295 stations in this data set is a subset of the compilation of stations previously described in the "Notes on the Selected U.S. Geological Survey Stream Gaging Stations, Second Draft of August 1991" (see Annex). This subset consists of all of the record which is included in the Hydro-Climatic Data Network (HCDN) documented in USGS Open-File Report 92-129, "Hydro-Climatic Data Network (HCDN): A U.S. Geological Survey Streamflow Data Set for the United States for the Study of Climate Variations, 1874-1988" by J.R. Slack and Jurate Maciunas Landwehr. Of the 457 stations listed in the "Notes ...", 295 are in the HCDN. For those 295 stations, all of the monthly and annual streamflow which meets the HCDN standards constitutes this data set. This is a total of 17,319 water years of streamflow. Streamflow data at those stations which do not meet the HCDN standards are not included here. The streamflow data not meeting the HCDN standards at those stations plus the monthly and annual data at the remaining 162 stations will be in the second set of U.S. streamflow data. The file FIRST.ZIP is a PKZIP file and contains the data files and other files. The files obtained by running PKUNZIP require 3.2 megabytes of disk space. The five files in the FIRST.ZIP file are FIRST.LST -- A list of the stations, and attributes of the stations,for which streamflow data is supplied. FIRST.AMM -- The monthly streamflow data. AMM.FMT -- The format of the FIRST.AMM file. FIRST.AAM -- The annual streamflow data. AAM.FMT -- The format of the FIRST.AAM file. Please note that the data in the FIRST.AMM and FIRST.AAM is sorted in station number order, not the order in which the stations are listed in FIRST.LST. ---------------- ANNEX ---------------- Notes on the Selected U.S. Geological Survey Stream Gaging Stations - Second Draft of August 1991 - Introduction The stations in this compilation have been selected for the exchange of data with the USSR under the Working Group VII bilateral agreement. The stations represent a wide range of stream gaging stations operated by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in the United States. The drainage basins that they gage range in size from less than 1 square mile to more than 1,000,000 square miles (1 square mile equals 2.59 square kilometers). The conditions within the basin range from completely pristine to highly regulated. The stations have been selected to provide information on: a large fraction of the continental water flowing to the oceans, other large rivers of major flow within the continent, medium and small basins demonstrating largely natural flow, long record stations particularly suited to climatic analysis, stations in the UNESCO list, and other station of general interest to the hydrologist. While most stations have been selected to be the best of their type with the longest possible record length, some stations with shorter records have been included to provide a more complete geographic coverage and a greater indication of natural conditions. Sources for the stations in this compilation The station are taken from four sources - the USGS National Water Conditions list, the UNESCO list of selected rivers of the world, and the USGS Hydro- Climatic Data Network, and the USGS National Hydrologic Benchmark Network. The USGS National Water Conditions streamflow index stations consists of 177 stations. Each month contour maps of streamflow conditions within the United States are published based on data from these stations. There are some stations in Canada in the NWC list. Only the stations within the U.S. are included in this list. The UNESCO list of selected rivers of the world was originally published in 1969 and listed 81 stations in the U.S. Subsequent publications (1971, 1974, 1979, and 1985) listed monthly and annual streamflow for each of the stations. Over the years, additional stations were added. The present list consists of 92 stations and all of them are in this compilation. The USGS Hydro-Climatic Data Network (HCDN) is a collection of approximately 1700 long term USGS stream gaging stations having data suitable for climatic analysis. The stations are being selected to be as free from the influences of man as possible in each region of the country. Needless to say, in some areas there are no stations that are completely free of such influences. The best possible stations will be selected to provide such geographic coverage. This list is being defined at present. A preliminary estimate shows that about three quarters of the stations in the present compilation will also be stations included in the HCDN. The HCDN is expected to be available in late 1991 [Note: the HCDN was released in the summer of 1993]. At that time, suitable subsets of that list will be added to this compilation to provide additional "natural flow" coverage where necessary. In the interim, stations that might be expected to be in the HCDN have been shown in this list. The USGS also maintains a set of stream gaging stations know as the National Hydrologic Benchmark Network. These stations were established in the early 1960s in areas of the country that were essentially pristine. Most of those basins have remained so. Each of the Benchmark stations that has remained in a largely unaffected setting will be included in the HCDN. Organization of the list The 457 stations in this compilation are grouped into four sets within the list. The first set, consisting of 24 stations, are large rivers which represent a sizable large fraction of the flow from the continent to the ocean or a major distinct contribution to a river or body of water which does. The second set, consisting of 19 stations, are additional large rivers which feed into the rivers of the first set. The third set, consisting of 55 stations, are Benchmark stations that have retained their natural character over the period of their record. The fourth set, consisting of 359 stations, are all of the rest of the stations. Within each set the stations are listed in the order of their station numbers. Comments on the compilation Several of the stations in the UNESCO list gage essentially the same drainage as stations in the NWC list. In such cases, both stations have been included here for completeness. In the next edition of this compilation, we will attempt to indicate these relationships. One station in the UNESCO list (St. Lawrence River at Ogdensburg N.Y.) is not a station operated by the USGS. It is essentially identical to the USGS station number 04264331 (St. Lawrence R at Cornwall Ont nr Massena NY) when adjusted for storage in Lake St. Lawrence. No other information on the Ogdensburg station is provided in this compilation. We will attempt to rectify this in the next edition of the compilation. Several of the USGS stations in this list measure flow which is greatly affected by diversions, such as for irrigation or public water supply. For such stations, we will attempt to provide data on both the measured flow and the adjusted "natural" flow.