Data Sources
Census Bureau TIGER files have both linear and area water features. This from "Geographic Shapefile Concepts Overview," pp. 5-37-38
Due to the geological structure of state California, in order to understand its hydrology, one would have to comprehend the knowledge of geology, geomorphology, weather, and climate.
Precipitation in Northern California:
Water layout in Bay Area, California:
Humans have the highest control/impacts in the water system in California in water’s diverse usage.
Creeks in Alameda county:
Sulfur Mine Creek:
o 1890s-1930s, Leona Heights was a mine in Oakland hills
o Iron pyrite was mined (thought to be gold at first), aka “fool’s gold”.
o Today still, acidic and water containing metals flows into Leona Creek (the creek that passes through Mills)
o Passage of water flow:
o Lion Creek => Laundry Canyon => Leona Heights, Crestmont neighborhoods and the former Leona Quarry lands => Mills College => Evergreen Cemetery => 66th Ave.
Areas around the mine:
• Orange color of water comes from the iron oxides (not exactly poisonous)
• Oakland Hills was mined for timber, pasturage and minerals
Leona Creek:
• Creeks in Oakland is important to City of Oakland.
o Important to improve water quality and remove pollutants from water.
o Have flood control and ensure a well-operated stormwater drainage system.
• Purpose: control erosion and sedimentation, protect public health, drainage facilities
City of Oakland = supplied with water from Calapooya Creek Watershed.
o Watershed located in the Umpqua Sub-Basin of Southern Oregon Coastal Basin.
Water for city of Oakland comes from many different sources.
o Including watershed runoffs
o Mainly , 90%, is from Sierra Nevada watershed from Mokelumne River
o Source: http://www.ebmud.com/ou
Santa Ana River:
Natural Waterscapes:
• Input and output of water in California:
About 200 million acre-feet of water falls on California from precipitation (23 inches)
- Evapotranspiration is responsible for about 150 million acre-feet of run off
- Runoff is responsible for about 50 million acre-feet of runoff, which 30% is captured to be used for human uses [ farming, urban uses ]
• 1-2 families per year uses about 32,000 Gallons (1 acre-foot)
North (2/3 of precipitation) and west precipitates more than the south and east.
• 80% of precipitation (ppt) is from November to March (aka. Mediterranean Climate)
Work related with Hydrology:
Policy Maker
Land use planners
Geographers
Hydrologists
Random notes:
CoCoRaHS (Community Collaborative Rain, Hail and Snow Network)
A volunteer network with any age range and backgrounds all working together on collecting to measure/map precipitations of rain, hail and snow in local communities.
5.10 Hydrography
Hydrography features and attributes are available by county in the following shapefiles:
Area Hydrography County-based Shapefile
Linear Hydrography County-based Shapefile
The area hydrography shapefile contains the geometry and attributes of both perennial and intermittent area hydrography features, including ponds, lakes, oceans, swamps, glaciers, and the area covered by large streams represented as double-line drainage. Single-line drainage water features can be found in the All Lines Shapefile and Linear Hydrography Shapefile.
The linear hydrography shapefile contains all linear hydrography features with “H” (Hydrography) type MTFCC in the MAF/TIGER database by county. The shapefiles are provided at a county geographic extent and in linear elemental feature geometry. The content of the linear hydrography shapefile includes streams/rivers, braided streams, canals, ditches, artificial paths and aqueducts. A linear hydrography feature may include edges with both perennial and intermittent persistence.
The artificial path features may correspond to those in the USGS National Hydrographic Dataset (NHD). However, in many cases the features do not match NHD equivalent feature and will not carry the NHD metadata codes.
Single-line drainage water features include artificial path features that run through double-line drainage features such as rivers and streams, and serve as a linear representation of these features. Shorelines for area hydrography can be found in the All Lines shapefiles with MTFCC set to either “P0002” (shoreline of perennial water feature) or “P0003” (shoreline of intermittent water feature).
5.10.1 Area Hydrography County-based Shapefile Record Layout
File Name: tl_2013_<state-county FIPS>_areawater.shp
| Field | Length | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| ANSICODE | 8 | String | Official code for the water body for use by federal agencies for data transfer and dissemination, if applicable |
| HYDROID | 22 | String | Area hydrography identifier |
| FULLNAME | 100 | String | Concatenation of expanded text for prefix qualifier, prefix direction, prefix type, base name, suffix type, suffix direction, and suffix qualifier (as available) with a space between each expanded text field |
| MTFCC | 5 | String | MAF/TIGER feature class code |
| ALAND | 14 | Number | Land area |
| AWATER | 14 | Number | Water area |
| INTPTLAT | 11 | String | Latitude of the internal point |
| INTPTLON | 12 | String | Longitude of the internal point |
5.10.2 Linear Hydrography County-based Shapefile Record Layout
File Name: tl_2013_<state-county FIPS>_linearwater.shp
| Field | Length | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| ANSICODE | 8 | String | Official code for use by federal agencies for data transfer and dissemination, if applicable |
| LINEARID | 22 | String | Linear hydrography identifier |
| FULLNAME | 100 | String | Concatenation of expanded text for prefix qualifier, prefix direction, prefix type, base name, suffix type, suffix direction, and suffix qualifier (as available) with a space between each expanded text field |
| ARTPATH | 1 | String | Artificial path flag |
| MTFCC | 5 | String | MAF/TIGER feature class code |
References and Resources
Mills College. 2010. Vision: Sustainability Summer & Fall 2010 Volume 2, Issue 1
Mills College. 2013. Campus Map
McCarthy, Susan. 2009. The Rise and Fall of Lake Aliso. Mills Quarterly Fall 2009.
Mills College. 1890. Stereoscopic photograph of Lake Aliso at Mills College. University of California.
| File name | File type | Size | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1.png | PNG image data | 270.67 kB | Info |
| 2.png | PNG image data | 170.56 kB | Info |
| 3.png | PNG image data | 1.19 MB | Info |
| 4.png | PNG image data | 276.52 kB | Info |
| 5.png | PNG image data | 248.35 kB | Info |
| 6.png | PNG image data | 164.75 kB | Info |
| 7.png | PNG image data | 62.15 kB | Info |
| Alameda county creek.png | PNG image data | 1.47 MB | Info |
| Bayarea all water.png | PNG image data | 691.91 kB | Info |
| creek.png | PNG image data | 157.17 kB | Info |
| map.gif | GIF image data | 49.99 kB | Info |
| tl_2013_06001_areawater.zip | Zip archive data | 185.86 kB | Info |
| tl_2013_06001_linearwater.zip | Zip archive data | 435.8 kB | Info |
