FLORIDA GEOGRAPHIC DATA LIBRARY DOCUMENTATION

TITLE: REALTIME USGS STREAMFLOW STATIONS IN FLORIDA 2011

Geodataset Name:       STRSTX_APR11
Geodataset Type:       SHAPEFILE
Geodataset Feature:    Point
Feature Count:         550
GENERAL DESCRIPTION:
This data set represents realtime U.S. Geological Survey streamflow sampling stations in the state of Florida. Approximately 5,000 of the 6,900 U.S. Geological Survey sampling stations are equipped with telemetry to transmit data on streamflow, temperature, and other parameters back to a data base for real-time viewing via the World Wide Web. A map of the real-time stations is produced every day. (Note: There are other stream gauges in Florida that aren't captured in this USGS data. Potential sources for other gauge locations would be the National Weather Service and/or Water Management Districts.) This is an update to the strstx_nov04 layer.
DATA SOURCE(S):                    U.S. Geological Survey
SCALE OF ORIGINAL SOURCE MAPS:     Varies
GEODATASET EXTENT:                 State of Florida
PUBLICATION DATE: 20110502 TIME PERIOD OF CONTENT: Updated daily, see URL in attribute table. DOWNLOAD LINK: http://www.fgdl.org/metadataexplorer/explorer.jsp

FEATURE ATTRIBUTE TABLES:

Datafile Name: STRSTX_APR11.DBF
ITEM NAME WIDTH TYPE
OBJECTID
4 OID
Shape
4 Geometry
REALSTX_ID
8 Double
STAID
15 String
STANAME
80 String
ST
2 String
HUC
8 String
LATDD
8 Double
LONDD
8 Double
URL
150 String
DATUM
10 String
COUNT
8 Double
FLOODSTAGE
8 Double
WORKA
8 Double
DESCRIPT
52 String
FGDLAQDATE
36 Date
AUTOID
4 Integer

FEATURE ATTRIBUTE TABLES CODES AND VALUES:

Item
Item Description
OBJECTID Internal feature number.

Shape Feature geometry.

REALSTX_ID Undefined by source.

STAID Site number: Each site in the USGS data base has a unique 2 to 15 digit identification number.

STANAME Station name. The official name of the site in USGS's database.

ST The name of the state or territory in which the site is located.

HUC The Hydrologic Unit Code the station is located in. Hydrologic units are geographic areas representing part or all of a surface drainage basin or distinct hydrologic feature and are delineated on the State Hydrologic Unit Maps.

LATDD The latitude of the station in decimal degrees.

LONDD The longitude of the station in decimal degrees.

URL The webiste link for up-to-date station data.

DATUM The datum used to calculate the xy location of the stations.

COUNT Not defined by source.

FLOODSTAGE The elevation at which overflow of the natural banks of a stream or body of water begins in the reach or area in which the elevation is measured.

WORKA Working Active Site
1 = Site Active

0 = Site not active


DESCRIPT FGDL added field based on STANAME

FGDLAQDATE The date GeoPlan acquired the data from the source.

AUTOID Unique ID added by GeoPlan

Each USGS station contains a unique identification number
up to 18-digits long. The URL represents the most recent
known location for accessing the real-time data for the
station.

>  REALSTX.PAT:
>  COLUMN   ITEM NAME        WIDTH OUTPUT  TYPE N.DEC  ALTERNATE NAME
>      1  AREA                   4    12     F      3
>      5  PERIMETER              4    12     F      3
>      9  REALSTX#               4     5     B      -
>     13  REALSTX-ID             4     5     B      -
>     17  STAID                 15    15     C      -
>     32  STANAME               50    50     C      -
>     82  ST                     2     2     C      -
>     84  HUC                    8     8     C      -
>     92  CLASS                  4     5     B      -
>     96  FLOW                   4    12     F      2
>    100  TIME                  35    35     C      -
>    135  LATDD                  4    10     F      6
>    139  LONDD                  4    11     F      6
>    143  URL                  150   150     C      -
>    293  WORKA                  4     5     B      -
>    297  DATUMOLD              10    10     C      -
>    307  LONDDNEW               4    10     F      4
>    311  LATDDNEW               4    10     F      4
>    315  DATUMNEW              10    10     C      -
USER NOTES:
All locations are points.
This coverage includes only those stations with data actually being
served on the WWW at the time of compilation. Some stations -- and
sometimes whole states -- may be excluded because of temporary
webserver or network problems. In addition, a station with data
may not be shown on the map if its name and location are not yet
in the master list.
GeoPlan relied on the integrity of the attribute information within
the original data.
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Water Resources program, in 
cooperation with more than 800 Federal, State, and local agencies, 
operates a streamflow gaging-station network to collect nationally 
consistent information about the Nation's water resources and to 
help define and manage those resources. Individual stream-gaging 
stations are supported for specific purposes, such as water allocation, 
reservoir operations, or the regulation of permit requirements. However, 
the data are also used for flood hazard mitigation by the National 
Weather Service, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and the Federal 
Emergency Management Agency, for resource planning, for infrastructure 
design of reservoirs and dams, and for many other purposes.

More than Over 4,000 of the USGS's approximately 7,000 stream gages are 
equipped with telemetry that transmits a reading of stream depth to an office 
by satellite or telephone. Computers in the office convert the depth reading to 
a value for flow and plot a graph of flow versus time, usually showing the 
previous 7 days. Some stations also transmit values for temperature, 
conductance, or other parameters. The data typically are updated every 4 hours, 
but this can vary depending on the equipment used and the flow status. More 
frequent updates may be made in times of flooding. Realtime hydrologic data are 
provisional and have not been reviewed or edited. Each station record is considered 
provisional until the data are published, which usually occurs within 6 months of the 
end of the water year (September 30). Data users are cautioned to consider carefully 
the provisional nature of the information before using it for decisions that concern 
personal or public safety or the conduct of business that involves substantial monetary 
or operational consequences.

The primary purpose of this coverage is to produce an imagemap
for use on the World Wide Web.

Latitudes and  Longitude are specified to the nearest second.
The position is determined from 1:24,000-scale maps, where available,
but other lower scale (i.e. less resolution) maps may be used also.

This data is provided 'as is' and its vertical positional accuracy
has not been verified by GeoPlan

None

The Florida Geographic Data Library is a collection of Geospatial Data
compiled by the University of Florida GeoPlan Center with support from
the Florida Department of Transportation. GIS data available in FGDL is
collected from various state, federal, and other agencies (data sources)
who are data stewards, producers, or publishers. The data available in
FGDL may not be the most current version of the data offered by the
data source. University of Florida GeoPlan Center makes no guarantees
about the currentness of the data and suggests that data users check
with the data source to see if more recent versions of the data exist.

Furthermore, the GIS data available in the FGDL are provided 'as is'.
The University of Florida GeoPlan Center makes no warranties, guaranties
or representations as to the truth, accuracy or completeness of the data
provided by the data sources. The University of Florida GeoPlan Center
makes no representations or warranties about the quality or suitability
of the materials, either expressly or implied, including but not limited
to any implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular
purpose, or non-infringement. The University of Florida GeoPlan Center
shall not be liable for any damages suffered as a result of using,
modifying, contributing or distributing the materials.

A note about data scale: 

Scale is an important factor in data usage.  Certain scale datasets
are not suitable for some project, analysis, or modeling purposes.
Please be sure you are using the best available data. 

1:24000 scale datasets are recommended for projects that are at the
county level.
1:24000 data should NOT be used for high accuracy base mapping such
as property parcel boundaries.
1:100000 scale datasets are recommended for projects that are at the
multi-county or regional level.
1:125000 scale datasets are recommended for projects that are at the
regional or state level or larger.

Vector datasets with no defined scale or accuracy should be
considered suspect. Make sure you are familiar with your data
before using it for projects or analysis. Every effort has been
made to supply the user with data documentation. For additional
information, see the References section and the Data Source Contact
section of this documentation. For more information regarding
scale and accuracy, see our webpage at:
http://geoplan.ufl.edu/education.html

REFERENCES:
Streamflow Station Layer Info:
http://www.nationalatlas.gov/mld/realstx.html

Realtime Streamflow Stations Article:
http://www.nationalatlas.gov/articles/water/a_streamflow.html

National Water Information System:
http://waterdata.usgs.gov/nwis

DATA LINEAGE SUMMARY:
Each USGS District Office serves the realtime data of the stations
it services. A list of these pages may be seen at
http://water.usgs.gov/realtime.html  Every District realtime
page (some have several pages) contains a list of the stations for
which realtime data are available and a link to the data for
each station.

Every day, an automatic process retrieves the realtime
pages from each District and parses them to find the stations
served and the URL for each station's data. The station numbers
on this list are matched against a master list of USGS stations
to find the station name and the latitude/longitude of each
realtime station. This information is used to prepare an updated
point coverage.

CLASS values for the flow are:
>       le 0  Not valid (internal use)
>        1    New minimum
>        2    ge old minimum and le 5th percentile
>        3    gt 5th percentile and le 10th percentile
>        4    gt 10th percentile and le 25th percentile
>        5    gt 25th percentile and le 75th percentile
>        6    gt 75th percentile and le 90th percentile
>        7    gt 90th percentile and le old maximum
>        8    New maximum
Process Date: Daily

GeoPlan downloaded this data on May 02, 2011 from the National Atlas web site (http://nationalatlas.gov/atlasftp.html?openChapters=chpwater#chpbio). When downloaded the data was in the following projections: NAD 83. The data was projected to FGDL Albers NAD 83 HARN. During the QA/QC process the following steps were undertaken: - Selected points in the State of Florida via an attribute selection (ST = "FL") - Deleted empty fields (AREA, PERIMETER) and redundant fields (REALSTX_) - Deleted fields related to the river conditions at the time of download (CLASS, FLOW, STAGE, PERCENTILE, TIME, AND TIME_UTC). - Added DESCRIPT based on STANAME - Upcased all fields except URL - Added FGDLAQDATE based on date FGDL acquired the data from the source - Renamed dataset from realstx to strstx_apr11 Process Date: 20110502
Data imported to ArcSDE and exported as a shapefile. Process Date: 20110513
MAP PROJECTION PARAMETERS:

Projection                          ALBERS
Datum                               HPGN
Units                               METERS
Spheroid                            GRS1980
1st Standard Parallel               24  0  0.000
2nd Standard Parallel               31 30  0.000
Central Meridian                   -84 00  0.000
Latitude of Projection's Origin     24  0  0.000
False Easting (meters)              400000.00000
False Northing (meters)             0.00000

DATA SOURCE CONTACT (S):

Name:
Abbr. Name:
Address:


Phone:

Web site:
E-mail:
Contact Person:
         Phone:
        E-mail:
U.S. Geological Survey
USGS
445 National Center
Reston, VA
20192
1-888-275-8747 (1-888-ASK-USGS)

http://www.nationalatlas.gov/atlasftp.html#realstx http://answers.usgs.gov/cgi-bin/gsanswers?pemail=h2oteam&subject=GIS+Dataset+realstx

FGDL CONTACT:
Name:                   FLORIDA GEOGRAPHIC DATA LIBRARY
Abbr. Name:             FGDL
Address:                Florida Geographic Data Library
                        431 Architecture Building
                        PO Box 115706
                        Gainesville, FL  32611-5706
Web site:               http://www.fgdl.org

Contact FGDL: 

      Technical Support:	        http://www.fgdl.org/fgdlfeed.html
      FGDL Frequently Asked Questions:  http://www.fgdl.org/fgdlfaq.html
      FGDL Mailing Lists:		http://www.fgdl.org/fgdl-l.html
      For FGDL Software:                http://www.fgdl.org/software.html