Novato Creek Watershed

2015 Aug 19 Greetings, professional hydrologist. Cut me some slack, this is my first attempt. You probably studied hydrology for 4 years. I've been at it for 2 days now.

I have spent the last few months exploring the hills in the Novato area, hiking and testing radios and geocaching.

Yesterday I started reading a little hydrology book. (Water, Rivers and Creeks, Leopold 1997) Leopold says some guy in 1600's noticed the amount of water flowing into the sea from the Seine was about the same as the rainfall. How did he get his numbers? I figure it must have been a pretty rough estimate.

Can I use modern tools to do my own estimate?

Stream Gage

Given that

1. Input: a watershed basin contains the rainfall.
2. Output: river(s) are the outflow.

Inputs:

1. Find the area of the watershed.
2. Find the annual rainfall for the area.

Outputs:

1. Find the flow rates and volumes for the natural features.
2. Find volumes for man-made features (outfalls).
3. Calculate total volume.

The process:

1. Pick an area. I need good data. Local water agency + USGS stream data + GIS.
2. Build a model.
3. Run the model.
4. Look at results
5. Refine the model.
6. Go to step 3.

Area: Since I have spent so much time hiking and geocaching here, let's try the Novato Creek watershed

From Marin Watersheds: "The Novato Creek, located at the northwestern extent of San Pablo Bay, is the largest watershed in eastern Marin County. Its creeks flow eastward through oak and bay forests, grasslands, the City of Novato, and into San Pablo Bay near the mouth of the Petaluma River. The basin is 45 square miles and the main drainage in the watershed is Novato Creek; Novato Creek joined by six major tributaries along its 17 mile length: Leveroni, Bowman Canyon, Warner, Arroyo Avichi, Arroyo de San Jose, and Simmonds Slough."

Data sources

External links for resources; see also my Data sources page.

Novato Creek reports: http://marinwatersheds.org/novato.html

Local: Marin Watersheds Novato Creek reports

MarinMap where I got these: groundwater, nhd_flowline, waterbody, watershed_major, wetland

National:

NOAA Novato stream gage

USGS NWIS mapper | Novato Creek stream gage data

H&H study (Hydrology and hydraulics) was done by Kamman Hydrology and Engineering, Inc. in San Rafael