New Web-Based Tool Maps Critical Characteristics for Pennsylvania’s Streams and Watersheds

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has released a new Web-based application, Pennsylvania StreamStats, allowing users to delineate watersheds, determine their characteristics, and obtain stream-flow statistics quickly and easily anywhere in the state. 

Users can select locations of interest from an interactive map or enter latitude and longitude to obtain information for these locations. Using Pennsylvania StreamStats, users can determine a watershed’s drainage area in square miles, mean annual precipitation in inches, mean basin elevation in feet, and percentage of area covered by carbonate bedrock, glacial deposits, forests, or urban areas. Other stream-flow characteristics available include the 7-day, 2-, 10-, and 30-year low flows; 30-day, 2-, 10-, and 30-year low flows; 90-day, 10-year low flow; annual mean flow; harmonic mean flow; and base flow at the 10-, 25- and 50-year recurrence intervals. http://water.usgs.gov/osw/streamstats/index.html