Introduction and basic workflow for EflowStats

T. Joe Mills

13 May, 2017

Overview

EflowStats Is a reimplementation of the Hydrologic Index Tool (HIT; Henriksen et al, 2006) for calculating 171 hydrologic indices for stream classification analysis. Additionally, EflowStats can calculate 7 additional statistics used for streamflow classification reffered to as the “Magnificent Seven” (MAG7, Archfield et al., 2013). Unlike the original HIT, EflowStats has been redesigned to injest general hydrologic timeseries data and is not restricted to data formats used by the USGS National Water Information System.

A basic workflow

EflowStats can be used with the dataRetrieval R package to seamlessy calculate HIT and MAG7 satistics for any USGS stream gage.

library(dataRetrieval)
library(EflowStats)

#Get some data
dailyQ <- readNWISdv(siteNumber = "04085427",
parameterCd = "00060",
startDate = "2000-10-01",
endDate = "2012-9-30")

#Check data for completeness
dailyQClean <- validate_data(dailyQ[c("Date","X_00060_00003")],yearType="water")

#Get drainage area
siteInfo <- readNWISsite(siteNumber = "04085427")
drainageArea <- siteInfo$drain_area_va

#Get peak flows
peakFlows <- readNWISpeak(siteNumber = "04085427",
startDate = "2000-10-01",
endDate = "2012-9-30")

#Get flood recurence threshold
floodThresh <- get_peakThreshold(dailyQClean[c("date","discharge")],
peakFlows[c("peak_dt","peak_va")])

#Calculate all hit stats
calc_allHITOut <- calc_allHIT(dailyQClean,
drainArea=drainageArea,
floodThreshold=floodThresh)

#Calculate mag7 stats
magnifStatsOut <- calc_magnifSeven(dailyQClean,yearType="water",digits=3)

References

Henriksen, J. A., Heasley, J., Kennen, J.G., and Niewsand, S. 2006, Users’ manual for the hydroecological integrity assessment process software (including the New Jersey Assessment Tools): U.S. Geological Survey, Biological Resources Discipline, Open File Report 2006-1093, 71 p.

Archfield, S.A., J.G. Kennen, D.M. Carlisle, and D.M. Wolock. 2013. An Objective and Parsimonious Approach for Classifying Natural Flow Regimes at a Continental Scale. River Res. Applic. doi: 10.1002/rra.2710