Characterization of the Lower Willamette Basin, OR Using Arcgis
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2019 Characterization of the Lower Willamette Basin, OR using ArcGIS LAUREN TEZLOFF CE 413, WINTER 2019 MARCH 17, 2019 WEBPAGE: HTTP://ENGR.OREGONSTATE.EDU/~TETZLOFL OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY Page | 1 Table of Contents Introduction ............................................................................................. 2 Site Description ........................................................................................ 2 Data ........................................................................................................... 4 GIS Methods ............................................................................................ 5 Results & Discussion ............................................................................... 9 HUC-10 and 12 Subwatersheds ................................................................................................................ 9 Flowlines ................................................................................................................................................. 11 Elevation ................................................................................................................................................. 12 Precipitation ............................................................................................................................................ 15 Soil Type Distribution ............................................................................................................................. 17 Identifying Areas of High Runoff Potential ............................................................................................ 20 Appendices ............................................................................................. 22 Page | 2 Introduction Understanding flow distribution, elevation and available water storage within a watershed is important for water resource management. Geographic information systems are one way to effectively display this data both visually and through data tables. This report focuses on the Lower Willamette Basin, a central watershed in the Portland metropolitan area. The objective of this project is two-fold: to build a base dataset in ArcGIS for the Lower Willamette Basin and to identify areas at risk for high runoff rates. The base dataset is designed to characterize the watershed in terms of HUC divisions, flow distribution, elevation, precipitation and hydrologic soil type. The feature classes and rasters created can be used to calculate useful parameters in water resource engineering such as mean annual flow, drainage density, and average precipitation. In addition, comparing data on precipitation and available water storage in soil can help identify areas at risk for drainage and/or flooding issues. This can be further investigated to determine improvements in stormwater infrastructure (i.e. bioswales) and to prioritize drainage infrastructure projects which prevent these areas from becoming problematic. Site Description Figure 1. Location of Lower Willamette Basin in Oregon and Washington, U.S (with ESRI imagery basemap). The Lower Willamette Basin (HUC-8 17090012), located near Portland, OR (see Figures 1 and 2). This watershed is approximately 644 square miles and collects water from four local Page | 3 counties: Columbia, Multnomah, Clark and Clackamas. Main bodies of water in this watershed include the Willamette River, Columbia River, Scappoose Creek and Johnson Creek. 90% of the watershed is privately owned and mostly comprised of forests (40%), water/wetlands (37%) and grain crops/pastures (10%) (USDA NRCS, 2005). Local agricultural practices strongly influences water quality in this watershed. The Lower Willamette Watershed has diverse topography, with the coastal cascades on its western border (approx. 1,500-2,000 ft in elevation), the western cascades in the southeast of the basin (approx. 5,000-6,000 ft in elevation) and a combination of Willamette Valley plains (100-300 ft in elevation) and Willamette Valley foothills (1,000-2,000 ft in elevation) between the two cascades. The majority of the watershed receives an average of 39-51” of precipitation per year (Uhrich, M., and Wentz, D., 1999) Figure 2. Map of the Lower Willamette Basin, which includes the major cities of Portland, OR and Vancouver, WA (with ESRI imagery basemap). Page | 4 Data All data was projected to NAD 1983 State Plane Oregon North FIPS 3601, which is a Lambert Conic projection in units of U.S. feet. WBD Snapshot (NHD subwatershed data) • Source: NHDPlus (http://horizon-systems.com/NHDPlus/NHDPlusV2_17.php) • Coordinates: Geographic Coordinates, NAD 1983 • This vector dataset provides the HUC-8, HUC-10 and HUC-12 subwatersheds in the Pacific Northwest. The data was projected in NHD Snapshot (NHD flowline data) • Source: NHDPlus (http://horizon-systems.com/NHDPlus/NHDPlusV2_17.php) • Coordinates: Geographic Coordinates, NAD 1983 • This vector dataset provides flowlines throughout the Pacific Northwest. EROM Extension (NHD Extended Runoff Method data) • Source: NHDPlus (http://horizon-systems.com/NHDPlus/NHDPlusV2_17.php) • This data table includes flowline identification (COMID, ReachCodes) for the Pacific Northwest region. It also includes calculated mean annual flow per flowline segment, denoted by COMID. Oregon Digital Elevation Model • Source: Oregon Geospatial Data Gateway • Coordinates: Geographic Coordinates, NAD 1983 • This 10-m raster contains elevation data across Oregon. The raster was masked to the Oregon-portion of the Lower Willamette Basin, projected in North Oregon State Plane coordinates and was used for slope and terrain analysis. Precipitation data • Source: PRISM Climate Group (http://www.prism.oregonstate.edu/normals/) • Coordinates: Geographic Coordinates, NAD 1983 • This 800-m raster contains annual precipitation data across the United States, as averaged over the period of 1981-2010. The raster was masked to the Lower Willamette Basin, projected in North Oregon State Plane coordinates and was used for precipitation analysis. Soil data • Source: SSURGO (https://esri.maps.arcgis.com/apps/View/index.html?appid=cdc49bd63ea54dd2977f3f285 3e07fff) • Coordinates: Geographic Coordinates, NAD 1983 • This shapefile describes the type of soil located within the Lower Willamette Basin. It also includes water storage data (0-150 cm), meaning the amount of water that can be stored in the top 1.5 m of soil. Page | 5 GIS Methods HUC-10 and 12 Subwatersheds The very first step was to create a geodatabase in the Catalog. Within the geodatabase, a base dataset was created, where all shapefiles will be saved. After adding the WBD shapefile in ArcMaps, the ‘Select by Attributes’ tool was used to isolate the Lower Willamette Basin (HUC-8 17090012), as Figure 3 illustrates below. Figure 3. Using the ‘Select by Attributes’ tool to isolate a HUC-8 watershed from the WBD shapefile from NHDPlus. The isolated layer displayed the HUC-10 and HUC-12 subwatersheds only within the Lower Willamette Basin. A basin boundary was then created using the ‘dissolve’ tool based on the HUC-8 field in the Watershed layer, creating a new feature class. Both layers were projected into NAD 1983 State Plane Oregon North FIPS 3601 coordinates using the ‘Project’ tool. The resulting map is shown below in Figure 4. Figure 4. Map of the Lower Willamette Basin showing the five HUC-10 subwatersheds and 17 HUC-12 subwatersheds. Page | 6 The acreage for each HUC-12 subwatershed was then extracted from the attribute table of the Watershed layer. Additionally, the ‘Symbology’ tab under Properties was used to display the watershed according to HUC-10 and HUC-12 subwatershed boundaries. The ESRI topography basemap was added for context. Flowlines NHD Snapshot shapefile was uploaded on top of the Watershed layer. ‘Select by Location’ was then used with the NHD shapefile as the target layer and the basin boundary feature class as the source layer to select only the streams within the Lower Willamette Basin. By exporting the selected data, I was able to create a new feature class of flowlines and add the layer to the map. This shapefile was then projected into NAD 1983 State Plane Oregon North FIPS 3601 coordinates using the ‘Project’ tool. Drainage density was calculated by dividing the statistical sum of the ‘LengthKM’ column in the Flowlines attribute table by the statistical sum of the ‘Acreage’ column in the Watershed attribute table. Next, the EROM_Extension file was joined with the NHD flowline attribute table by linking COMIDs. The COMID is an NHD naming system that uniquely identifies each flowline. This process allowed the mean annual flow to be copied from the EROM_Extension file and pasted in the flowlines attribute table by use of ‘Field Calculator’. The symbology was changed to graduated symbols, setting the value field to mean annual flow. The resulting map displays the distribution and degree of flow denoted by line weight. Major waterbodies were then labeled using the ‘Callout’ feature of the Drawing toolbox. To analyze the mean annual flow while excluding the major flows, the ‘Select by Attributes’ tool was used to select all flowlines other than the Columbia River, Willamette River and Columbia Slough (see Figure 5). Figure 5. Using the ‘Select by Attributes’ tool to select all flowlines other than the Columbia River, Willamette River and Columbia Slough. Page | 7 Elevation The Oregon DEM was masked to the Lower Willamette Basin by using the ‘Extract by Mask’ tool with the projected Watershed layer as