Site visit cross section surveys and multispectral image data from gaging stations throughout the Willamette and Delaware River Basins from 2022 and code for Bathymetric Mapping using Gage Records and Image Databases (BaMGRID)

This data release includes cross section survey data collected during site visits to USGS gaging stations located throughout the Willamette and Delaware River Basins and multispectral images of these locations acquired as close in time as possible to the date of each site visit. In addition, MATLAB source code developed for the Bathymetric Mapping using Gage Records and Image Databases (BaMGRID) framework is also provided.

The site visit data were obtained from the Aquarius Time Series database, part of the USGS National Water Information System (NWIS), using the Publish Application Programming Interface (API). More specifically, a custom MATLAB function was used to query the FieldVisitDataByLocationServiceRequest endpoint of the Aquarius API by specifying the gaging station ID number and the date range of interest and then retrieve the QRev XML attachments associated with site visits meeting these criteria. These XML files were then parsed using another custom MATLAB function that served to extract the cross section survey data collected during the site visit. Note that because many of the site visits involved surveying cross sections using instrumentation that was not GPS-enabled, latitude and longitude coordinates were not available and no data values (NaN) are used in the site visit files provided in this data release.

Remotely sensed data acquired as close as possible to the date of each site visit were also retrieved via APIs. Multispectral satellite images from the PlanetScope constellation were obtained using custom MATLAB functions developed to interact with the Planet Orders API, which provided tools for clipping the images to a specified area of interest focused on the gaging station and harmonizing the pixel values to be consistent across the different satellites within the PlanetScope constellation. The data product retrieved was the PlanetScope orthorectified 8-band surface reflectance bundle. PlanetScope images are acquired with high frequency, often multiple times per day at a given location, and so the search was restricted to a time window spanning from three days prior to three days after the site visit. All images meeting these criteria were downloaded and manually inspected; the highest quality image closest in time to the site visit date was retained for further analysis.

For the gaging stations within the Willamette River Basin, digital aerial photography acquired through the National Agricultural Imagery Program (NAIP) in 2022 were obtained using a similar set of MATLAB functions developed to access the USGS EarthExplorer Machine-to-Machine (M2M) API. The NAIP quarter-quadrangle image encompassing each gaging station was downloaded and then clipped to a smaller area centered on the gaging station. Only one NAIP image at each gaging station was acquired in 2022, so differences in streamflow between the image acquisition date and the date of the site visit closest in time were accounted for by performing separate NWIS web queries to retrieve the stage and discharge recorded at the gaging station on the date the image was acquired and on the date of the site visit.

These data sets were used as an example application of the framework for Bathymetric Mapping using Gage Records and Image Databases (BaMGRID) and this data release also provides MATLAB source code developed to implement this approach. The code is packaged in a zip archive that includes the following individual *.m files: 1) getSiteVisit.m, for retrieving data collected during site visits to USGS gaging stations through the Aquarius API; 2) Qrev2depth.m, for parsing the XML file from the site visit and extracting depth measurements surveyed along a channel cross section during a direct discharge measurement; 3) orderPlanet.m, for searching for and ordering PlanetScope images via the Planet Orders API; 4) pollThenGrabPlanet.m, for querying the status of an order and then downloading PlanetScope images requested through the Planet Orders API; 5) organizePlanet.m, for file management and cleanup of the original PlanetScope image data obtained via the previous two functions; 6) ingestNaip.m, for searching for, ordering, and downloading NAIP data via the USGS Machine-to-Machine (M2M) API; 7) naipExtractClip.m, for clipping the downloaded NAIP images to the specified area of interest and performing file management and cleanup; and 8) crossValObra.m, for performing spectrally based depth retrieval via the Optimal Band Ratio Analysis (OBRA) algorithm using a k-fold cross-validation approach intended for small sample sizes.

The files provided through this data release include:

1. A zipped shapefile with polygons delineating the Willamette and Delaware River basins
2. *.csv text files with information on site visits within each basin during 2022
3. *.csv text files with information on PlanetScope images of each gaging station close in time to the date of each site visit that can be used to obtain the image data through the Planet Orders API or Planet Explorer web interface.
4. A *.csv text tile with information on NAIP images of each gaging station in the Willamette River Basin as close in time as possible to the date of each site visit, along with the stage and discharge recorded at the gaging station on the date of image acquisition and the date of the site visit.
5. A zip archive of the clipped NAIP images of each gaging station in the Willamette River Basin in GeoTIFF format.
6. A zip archive with source code (MATLAB *.m files) developed to implement the Bathymetric Mapping using Gage Records and Image Databases (BaMGRID) framework.