Chicago's Drought

Last week, I looked at the extremes of flow in the Mississippi River by using HydroDesktop to download and examine discharge data from three sites along the river. For this post, I've decided to look at the effect of drought a bit further North.

Prior to European settlement, the Chicago River flowed into Lake Michigan. The flow was reversed in 1900 to improve sanitary conditions. Presently, however, drought conditions have caused the water level of Lake Michigan to drop to such an extent that the flow of the Chicago River may reverse to its natural (post-glacial) course. Such a reversal would have significant implications for the Chicago Metropolitan Area's infrastructure and, as such, this topic has been covered by multiple media outlets that include:

• CBS Chicago
• The Huffington Post
• The Smithsonian

I was hoping to examine data from two angles to see the impact of drought on water bodies in the region. First, I wanted to find a time series of the water level of Lake Michigan, and second, I wanted to find discharge data of the Chicago River. Unfortunately, I did not find data I was satisfied with for the changing water level in the lake over the past few years, but I was able to find a solid source for the observed discharge of the river's North Branch (NWIS Daily Values) at a location near Albany Avenue.

Data for this post were downloaded from a site on the North Branch of the Chicago River...

...near Albany Avenue.

The data set from this site shows the impact that the drought has had on flow in this section of the river.

The graph above shows that the discharge during Spring of 2012 never reached the levels of the previous two years. While both 2010 and 2011 experienced flows of over 1,500 cubic feet per second, 2012's peak discharge did not even reach 1,000 cubic feet per second. If we take a look at precipitation data for the past three years, we can also see the drought signature in precipitation data. A quick look at the below graphs - precipitation observed near the Chicago Harbor Lock - reveals the fact that rainy days were less frequent in 2012 than in either of the previous two years.

2010 Precipitation near Chicago Harbor Lock

2011 Precipitation near Chicago Harbor Lock

2012 Precipitation near Chicago Harbor Lock

Extremes on the Mississippi River

Over the last two years, the flow in the Mississippi River has been marked by extremes. In Spring 2011, record water levels forced evacuations while, more recently, drought has threatened shipping routes. After seeing another NYT article covering the impacts that the drought is having on shipping routes last Friday, I decided to take a look at the data in HIS. 

Ideally, I wanted to find a few different sites along the Mississippi and download and compare discharge data over the past couple years. I knew that the USGS NWIS Daily Values, readily accessible in HIS, has national coverage measuring discharge levels daily. So, I went about scrolling down the Mississippi in HydroDesktop looking for NWIS sites to compare. 

HydroDesktop Tip: Use the Select Data Sources tool to limit searches to specific data sources.

I found three such sites where I could compare the discharge values since 2011: St. Louis (MO), Vicksburg (MS), and Belle Chasse (LA). The location of these sites can be seen in Google Earth below...

I found that the discharge time series of all three of these sites displayed a signature of these recent extreme events, but the typical flow, and amplitude of these events, differed by site...

While the St. Louis site is characterized by consistently lower rates of discharge (a maximum of ~600,000 cubic feet per second since January 2010) and less fluctuation, the other two sites have both crossed the 1,000,000 cubic feet per second seasonally. A dramatic increase in flow can definitively be observed in 2011 at the Vicksburg site (corresponding to the aforementioned Spring 2011 record water levels). And, while the flow rate at the Belle Chasse site is more similar to Vicksburg than that of St. Louis, the signal of the extreme events does not display as dramatic fluctuations.

Individual graphs of each of the time series can be seen below...

Observed Discharge of the Mississippi River at St. Louis, MO since January 2011. Note the decrease in 2012 when compared to the previous two years.

Observed Discharge of the Mississippi River at Vicksburg, MS since January 2011. Note the dramatic peak flow in Spring 2011.

Observed Discharge of the Mississippi River at Belle Chasse, LA since January 2011.

A HydroDesktop Progress Report

Dan Ames, who leads the HydroDesktop development team at BYU, recently delivered a HydroDesktop Progress Report on a CUAHSI Community Informatics Teleconference. Dr. Ames highlighted the new features in the current version of HydroDesktop as well as discussed the development strategy that has been employed.

Check out Dr. Ames' slides below:

HIS Around the Web...

Last week, two very cool HIS related articles came to our attention here at CUAHSI. One is in response to a National Water Quality Monitoring Council webinar delivered by Executive Director Rick Hooper; the other highlights research being conducted by the Shale Network, which is using HIS to store and analyze data. Follow the links below to check them out...

• Info system links hydrological researchers to open source data across the U.S. 

• Citizen Scientists Help the Shale Network Address Fracking Concerns

2012 in Review: Data Sources Added to the HIS Catalog

The number of data services registered in HIS continued to grow in 2012 with 26 new web services registered with the central catalog. These new services include data from university researchers, citizen science organizations, as well as federal agencies. Here are a few notable additions...

Shale Network - As I highlighted in a previous post, the Shale Network project is investigating the potential impact of natural gas extraction in the Marcellus Shale region. The database is being developed from multiple sources with multiple partners; CUAHSI is participating through hosting and helping to maintain the database as well as through providing training and support in using HIS.

Kansas State Daily Weather Data - This service, from researchers at KSU, includes daily weather data collected at 14 sites throughout the state of Kansas. The observed variables in this database include net radiation, temperature (air & soil), wind speed & direction, evapotranspiration, and precipitation.

4 New NASA Services - NASA has registered 4 new services from the North American Land Data Assimilation System (NLDAS) and Global Land Data Assimilation System (GLDAS).

• NLDAS Hourly Mosaic Data
• GLDAS 3-hourly Noah Data
• NLDAS Hourly Primary Forcing Data
• NLDAS Hourly NOAH Data

Ipswich River Watershed Association RiverWatch Program - Another service that I have previously highlighed is the IRWA RiverWatch program, which has citizen scientists collect data to monitor the health of the Ipswich River (located in Northeast Massachusetts). The observations published in HIS include dissolved oxygen and water temperature. 

*New* Recommended Release of HydroDesktop

HydroDesktop 1.5.12 is now the recommended release.

CUAHSI and the HydroDesktop development team have officially designated version 1.5.12 as the new recommended release. This new release comes after 9 months of work by the development team to incorporate new features and functionality in addition to improving the performance and stability of HydroDesktop.

Here is a rundown of some of the new features in HydroDesktop...

Additional HydroDesktop plugins can now be downloaded from the Extension Manager.

The Extension Manager - The new installer for 1.5.12 includes less plugins then previous versions, but is also more customizable then previous versions because it allows you to download only the additional features that you need. For example, both the Geostatisical Tools and HydroModeler have been removed. These tools, however, are both available through the Extension Manager which enables download and installation of additional plugins. To do browse available downloads, simply click File and select Extension Manager.

Time Series Import - Users are now able to import time series data into HydroDesktop. To do this, select Import on the Table tab and navigate to the file location. Valid file extensions include .csv, .xls, .txt, and .xml (for data in WaterML).

The contents of attribute tables are now searchable (by typing in the blank form near the top of the table) and sortable (by clicking on a field name).

Searching & Sorting in the Attribute Table - Fields in the Attribute Table are now searchable and sortable. Open an attribute table for a layer by right clicking on the layer in the Legend and selecting View Attribute Table. The table is also accessible by highlighting the layer of interest and clicking View Attribute Table on the Map tab. To sort the items based on a field, click on the field name at the top of the table. To search a field for specific items, click the blank text box and begin typing - the table will begin to filter as you type.

The User Guide button in HydroDesktop now launches the User Guide that is a part of this site.

New User Guide Format - Lastly, we have a new format for the User Guide - this site! To access the User Guide from HydroDesktop, click the User Guide button on the Help tab. If you are not connected to the internet, HydroDesktop will launch a static version of the help documents in a .pdf document.