Novato Creek Watershed
2015 Aug 19 I have spent the last few months exploring the hills in this area, hiking and testing radios and geocaching.
Yesterday I started reading a hydrology book. (The title?) Some guy in 1600's did a paper that said amount of water flowing into the sea was about the same as the rainfall. (Citation needed :-) How did he get the numbers? I figure it must have been a pretty rough estimate.
Can I use modern tools to do my own estimate?
Hydrologic model
Given that
- Input: a watershed basin contains the rainfall.
- Output: river(s) are the outflow.
Inputs:
- Find the area of the watershed.
- Find the annual rainfall for the area.
Outputs:
- Find the flow rates and volumes for the natural features.
- Find volumes for man-made features (outfalls).
- Calculate total volume.
The process:
- Pick an area. I need good data. Local water agency + USGS stream data + GIS.
- Build a model.
- Run the model.
- Look at results
- Refine the model.
- Go to step 3.
Area: Since I have spent so much time hiking and geocaching here, let's try the Novato Creek watershed
Data sources
External links for resources; see also my Data Sources.
Local:
Marin Watersheds Novato Creek reports
MarinMap]
National: USGS NWIS mapper | [Novato Creek Stream Gage http://waterdata.usgs.gov/nwis/wys_rpt/?site_no=11459500]
