The Great Lakes Hydrography Dataset: Consistent, Binational Watersheds for the Laurentian Great Lakes Basin

Abstract

Ecosystem‐based management of the Laurentian Great Lakes, which spans both the United States and Canada, is hampered by the lack of consistent binational watersheds for the entire Basin. Using comparable data sources and consistent methods, we developed spatially equivalent watershed boundaries for the binational extent of the Basin to create the Great Lakes Hydrography Dataset (GLHD). The GLHD consists of 5,589 watersheds for the entire Basin, covering a total area of approximately 547,967 km2, or about twice the 247,003 km2 surface water area of the Great Lakes. The GLHD improves upon existing watershed efforts by delineating watersheds for the entire Basin using consistent methods; enhancing the precision of watershed delineation using recently developed flow direction grids that have been hydrologically enforced and vetted by provincial and federal water resource agencies; and increasing the accuracy of watershed boundaries by enforcing embayments, delineating watersheds on islands, and delineating watersheds for all tributaries draining to connecting channels. In addition, the GLHD is packaged in a publically available geodatabase that includes synthetic stream networks, reach catchments, watershed boundaries, a broad set of attribute data for each tributary, and metadata documenting methodology. The GLHD provides a common set of watersheds and associated hydrography data for the Basin that will enhance binational efforts to protect and restore the Great Lakes.

Decision support for aquatic restoration based on species‐specific responses to disturbance

“…Because the availability of disturbance indices and fish observations was greatest in Lake Erie, we use its nearshore zone to illustrate application of fish prediction models and spatial agreement of fish abundance response to disturbed conditions throughout a great lake. The Lake Erie nearshore zone consisted of 9,770,077 30‐m cells (Forsyth et al, 2016; Riseng et al, 2018).…”

Movement and Space Use of Grass Carp in the Sandusky River, Ohio: Implications for Lake Erie Eradication Efforts

“…Study site.-The Sandusky River watershed drains approximately 4,700 km 2 in northwest Ohio (Tetra Tech 2014). The total length of the Sandusky River is approximately 207 km (Forsyth et al 2016); the river flows into Muddy Creek Bay and subsequently Sandusky Bay before entering Lake Erie (Figure 1). Prior to 2018, the Ballville Dam was located approximately 55 km from Lake Erie and was the upstream barrier from Lake Erie on the Sandusky River.…”

Effective fetch and relative exposure index maps for the Laurentian Great Lakes

“…To process wind data in GIS, we created a land-water mask separating the five Great Lakes and defining each raster grid cell as land or water based on the location of the center point of the grid cell. We used the Great Lakes Aquatic Habitat Framework 18 (GLAHF; https://www.glahf.org/) spatial framework of 30-m grid cells covering the entire aquatic areas of the Great Lakes including defined boundaries for shoreline (approximately the ordinary high water mark), basins and sub-basins, bays, and islands 25 . We divided the water surface into regions based on the number and locations of offshore buoys.…”