This is one instance where at least for the US, there is very good public data already. Hydrologic Unit Code Watersheds http://water.usgs.gov/GIS/huc.html are available from the USGS and are available to reasonably small watersheds. In addition, the National Weather Service has IHABBS http://www.nohrsc.nws.gov/technology/gis/ihabbs_overview.html that is used to create the basins used by the River Forecasting Centers across the country http://www.weather.gov/geodata/catalog/hydro/html/basins.htm.
On 7/20/07, Mike Liebhold <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Amy Johnson wrote: > I'm looking for some input from people on an idea I have to develop a > website that catalogs watersheds. Wow! what a great idea ( below) An Open Watershed Map aggregator would be an extremely useful resource. As you mention below, lots of regional groups are working within watersheds as the natural basic boundary for local ecologic restoration and management, rather than political boundaries which arbitrarily cross habitats and ecosystems. I wonder how much of watershed boundries could be generated algorithmically along topographic ridges and high points. If you don't mind, I am cross-post this to the geowanking list of GIS hackers, who will definitely have some great ideas on how to do this - technically. http://lists.burri.to/mailman/listinfo/geowanking Open Street Map, is an already existing international cooperative mapping movement to create a free map of the world, that has focused, so far mostly on urban street maps, but is definitely a kindred group. many contributors might be interested in joining your project and sharing hard earned expertise in grassroots map making. http://www.openstreetmap.org/ Cheers! Mike Mike Liebhold Senior Researcher Institute for the Future - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Amy Johnson wrote: > My initial thinking is to start with North America (mostly because > that's where I live) and put together boundaries for watersheds as > communities define them. For instance, in Portland, Oregon, there are > several groups that monitor watersheds. There is the Columbia Slough > watershed organization, the Johnson Creek watershed organization, etc. > These are managed on the local level, then on the city level, then > state wide there are management plans that affect them, and the > federal government also affects them. > > The way I would catalog the watersheds would be on a web mapping > service, so they would be available online for people to use in their > own mapping applications through a web service. > > My hope is to provide the beginnings of a way to look at data for this > particular organizational boundary, possibly allowing it to extend to > different scales as overlapping information becomes available. > > I am a programmer with a keen interest in ecosystems, so I am probably > missing a lot of the nuances on the earth science side of things and > need some advice on whether this would be useful. > > > The Open Forum on Participatory Geographic Information Systems and > Technologies is managed by www.iapad.org and hosted by www.ppgis.net > PGIS, PPGIS and community mapping bibliography is found at > http://ppgis.iapad.org/bibliography.htm > Dgroups is a joint initiative of Bellanet, DFID, Hivos, ICA, IICD, > OneWorld, UNAIDS > --- You are currently subscribed to ppgis as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > _______________________________________________ Geowanking mailing list [email protected] http://lists.burri.to/mailman/listinfo/geowanking
-- ************************************ David William Bitner
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