StreamStats: Determining Magnitude and Frequency of Floods in California

StreamStats: A streamflow web application: Webinar Presentation B
Status on the Development of Methods Determining Magnitude and Frequency of Floods in California by Tony Gotvald and Nancy Barth (A supplemental presentation for the Webinar "StreamStats: A Streamflow web application")

provides users with streamflow statistics, basin characteristics, and other information for USGS data-collection stations and for ungaged sites. Users can select data-collection station locations shown on a map and obtain previously published information for the stations. Users also can select any location along a stream and obtain the drainage-basin boundary, basin characteristics, and estimates of streamflow statistics for the location. These estimates are useful for a variety of water-resources planning and management purposes, including instreamflow analyses, as well as for engineering and design purposes. The streamflow statistics that can be estimated for ungaged sites vary among the states that are implemented in StreamStats. Only estimates of flood frequency statistics are available for ungagged sites in California. The StreamStats development team coordinator, Kernell Ries, will provide a description of current and planned functionality for California StreamStats, and hydrologists Tony Gotvald and Nancy Barth will describe the development of new regression equations for estimating flows with 50-, 20-, 10-, 4-, 2-, 1-, 0.5-, and 0.2-percent annual exceedance probabilities for ungagged basins in California. These new equations will be incorporated into the StreamStats program in the near future.

Kernell Ries is a hydrologist with the U.S. Geological Survey's Office of Surface Water, where he has been the national coordinator for the StreamStats Program since its inception 10 years ago. He also has worked for the USGS Water Science Centers in Massachusetts for 22 years and in Maryland for 6 years. During his career, Kernell has authored or co-authored over 50 publications on various aspects of surface-water hydrology, but primarily on statistical hydrology and use of geographic information systems for hydrologic applications. He has given numerous presentations at national and international conferences and other venues, and has taught several USGS training courses in statistical hydrology. In addition, Kernell serves as the USGS
representative for the Hydrology, Hydraulics, and Water Quality Subcommittee of the
Transportation Research Board of the National Research Council. Kernell has a B.S. degree in hydrology from the University of New Hampshire.

Tony Gotvald received a Bachelor of Science Degree in Civil Engineering from Mississippi State University in May of 1999 and a Master of Science Degree in Civil Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology in December of 2004. He began his career with the U.S. Geological Survey as a student in the Mississippi Water Science Center in January of 1997. After graduating from Mississippi State University in of May 1999, he transferred to the USGS Georgia Water Science Center as a full-time employee. He serves as technical support for the surface-water activities in the Georgia Water Science Center and is a member of the USGS Surface-Water User Group (SWUG). He has conducted flood frequency studies in the Southeast as well as in California.

Nancy Barth received her Bachelor of Arts Degree in Geophysics from U.C. Berkeley in August of 2001 and a Master of Science Degree in Geology from California State University, Sacramento in August 2010. She began her U.S. Geological career as a student at the California Water Science Center in January 2008. Over the past four years, she has helped update regional skew and flood frequency estimates in California. She began helping the Office of Surface Water (OSW) in June 2011 compare flood frequency estimates between Bulletin 17B and the Expected Moments Algorithm (EMA) method for 82 long-term USGS gaging stations throughout the United States. The results of these comparisons will be presented to the Subcommittee on Hydrology, Advisory Committee on Water Information Hydrologic Frequency Analysis Workgroup (HFAWG).

• Status on the Development of Methods Determining Magnitude and Frequency of Floods in California by Tony Gotvald and Nancy Barth
(A supplemental presentation for the Webinar "StreamStats: A Streamflow web application")