Week 6: Watershed Delineation

Presentation Slides

• Tuesday — Watershed Delineation, Part A — What a watershed is and why water is managed by them — Powell, nested hydrologic units from Rock Canyon to the Great Salt Lake, the water balance — then Lab 5 and the first three steps from a DEM: the elevation surface, Fill, slope and aspect against D8, and the flow direction grid.
• Thursday — Watershed Delineation, Part B — A watershed delineated by hand and then with USGS StreamStats, then the rest of the steps in ArcGIS Pro: flow accumulation, the stream threshold, stream links, pour points and subwatersheds, and the Lab 5 model that runs all eight.

Press F for fullscreen and P for presenter view with speaker notes.

In-Class Practice

• Aspect and D8 Flow Direction (Excel) (graded, 5 points) — done in class Tuesday; upload the workbook by 9:30 am, fifteen minutes after class.

Self-check quizzes — not graded; open them on a phone or laptop as often as you like:

• Which Way Does Water Go? — Five questions on what a watershed is, how watersheds nest, the water balance, why Fill comes first, and aspect against D8 flow direction.
• Follow the Water — Five questions on the order of the delineation steps, the stream threshold, the watershed of a pour point, snapping, and what StreamStats buys you.

Lab Assignment

Lab 5 — Watershed Delineation

Due Saturday at 11:59 pm as one PDF report on Learning Suite — 50 points.

Reading Quiz

Read Chapter 10 review; some of this quiz needs a web search of GIS Fundamentals, 7th edition (Bolstad).

Quiz 6 — Watershed Delineation on Learning Suite: open book, done independently. Due Saturday at 11:59 pm — 20 points.

Note

If you see a discrepancy between Learning Suite and this page, please let me know so I can rectify it.