U.S. Department of the InteriorU.S. Geological Survey

The CRUISE tool - An interactive, GIS-based application to estimate continuous,

unimpacted daily streamflow at ungaged locations in the Connecticut River Basin

Stacey Archfield

Peter Steeves

John Guthrie

Kernell Ries

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:IMG_3758_view_north_from_French_King_Bridge.jpg

The Connecticut River looking north in the early evening, from the French King Bridge at the Erving-Gill town line in Western Massachusetts.

With support from:

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Objectives Develop an easy-to-use, screening-level tool to estimate continuous

unimpacted streamflow at ungaged locations in the Connecticut River basin (excluding the mainstem of the Connecticut River)

POINT-AND-CLICK GIS USER-INTERFACE COUPLED WITH

MICROSOFT EXCEL SPREADSHEET

APPROACH REQUIRES SIMPLIFYING ASSUMPTIONS AND

FEW PARAMETERS

Existing tools to estimate daily, unregulated and water-use adjusted streamflow in southern New England had already been developed [Archfield et al., 2010 and Archfield and Vogel, 2010] (aka MA SYE)

This project leverages these existing methods to create the CRUISE tool, which provides estimates of daily, unregulated streamflow across the entire Connecticut River Basin.

The Connecticut River UnImpacted Streamflow Estimation (CRUISE) tool

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Estimate flow-duration curve

EXCEEDENCE PROBABILITY

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Area = XX.X mi2

Estimate basin characteristics

Solve the regression equationsln(Q50) = a1 + b1 * (ln(Area))

Obtain flow series from reference gage

Method to estimate daily streamflow

Archfield et al. [in review]; Shu and Ourda [2011]; Archfield et al. [2010]; Mohamoud [2008]

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Utility of the method to estimate daily streamflows

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The Connecticut River Basin UnImpacted Flows tool

Locate and select stream reach of interest

Begin with an overview of the entire basin

Test site available at: http://webdmamrl.er.usgs.gov/s1/sarch/ctrtool/index.html

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The Connecticut River Basin Unimpacted Flows Tool

The user can export a shapefile of the delineated basin and obtain the

basin characteristics needed to calculate daily streamflow

Basin is delineated

Basin characteristics are computed and summarized

The spreadsheet program uses the basin characteristics to complete the calculation of daily streamflow

This process balances the flexibility needed to customize the tool to meet the user needs while removing the complex

desktop setup process and problems encountered due to version control.

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Demonstration of the CRUISE tool

CRUISE website

Clark Brook near Buckland, MALatitude: 42.58917

Longitude: 72.76776

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Application of the CRUISE tool The CRUISE tool was applied to

approximately 300 stream locations in the Connecticut River Basin.

These locations were dam locations and/or nodes of ecological interest.

Streamflow data at these nodes are being used in simulation and optimization models of the basin.

Streamflow data is available through the Army Corps of Engineers DSS software

Searsburg Dam

http://www.hec.usace.army.mil/software/hec-dss/hecdssvue-download.htm

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Accessing the node data

Shapefile containing the node locations and names (in Massachusetts State

Plane)

CRUISE from USGS - 2011-10-07.dss Connecticut - Unregulated Flows - ResSim - 2012-02-17.dss

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Accessing the node data - DSSConnecticut - Unregulated Flows - ResSim - 2012-02-17.dss

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Contact Information

Stacey Archfield

Massachusetts-Rhode Island WSC

sarch@usgs.gov (508) 490-5072

Products CRUISE Website, software

tool and user manual

Journal manuscript under revision

Three presentations at technical conferences

Please note that streamflows estimated by the CRUISE tool are considered provisional until formal approval by the U.S. Geological Survey.