The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), in cooperation with the Puerto Rico Environmental Quality Board, has compiled a series of geospatial datasets for Puerto Rico to be implemented into the USGS StreamStats application (https://streamstats.usgs.gov/ss/). These geospatial datasets, along with basin characteristics datasets for Puerto Rico published as a separate USGS data release (https://doi.org/10.5066/P9HK9SSQ), were used to delineate watersheds and develop the peak-flow and low-flow regression equations used by StreamStats. The geospatial dataset described herein are watershed catchment rasters at a 10-m resolution. The catchment raster assigns a number to each pixel that is unique for each catchment and corresponds to the value of the stream segment that drains that area. Data are partitioned into four TIFF files, one for each of the four 8-digit Hydrologic Unit Code (HUC) areas for Puerto Rico: 21010002, 21010003, 21010004, and 21010005.

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), in cooperation with the Puerto Rico Environmental Quality Board, has compiled a series of geospatial datasets for Puerto Rico to be implemented into the USGS StreamStats application (https://streamstats.usgs.gov/ss/). These geospatial datasets, along with basin characteristics datasets for Puerto Rico published as a separate USGS data release (https://doi.org/10.5066/P9HK9SSQ), were used to delineate watersheds and develop the peak-flow and low-flow regression equations used by StreamStats. The geospatial dataset described herein are the sink point grid rasters at a 10-m resolution, which are raster representations of the sink points. The value of 1 is assigned to pixels that are sinks. Data are partitioned into three TIFF files, for three of the four 8-digit Hydrologic Unit Code (HUC) areas for Puerto Rico: 21010002, 21010004, and 21010005. A sink point grid raster was not generated for HUC 21010003 because sinks were not present in this HUC area.

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), in cooperation with the Puerto Rico Environmental Quality Board, has compiled a series of geospatial datasets for Puerto Rico to be implemented into the USGS StreamStats application (https://streamstats.usgs.gov/ss/). These geospatial datasets, along with basin characteristics datasets for Puerto Rico published as a separate USGS data release (https://doi.org/10.5066/P9HK9SSQ), were used to delineate watersheds and develop the peak-flow and low-flow regression equations used by StreamStats.

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), in cooperation with the Puerto Rico Environmental Quality Board, has compiled a series of geospatial datasets for Puerto Rico to be implemented into the USGS StreamStats application (https://streamstats.usgs.gov/ss/). These geospatial datasets, along with basin characteristics datasets for Puerto Rico published as a separate USGS data release (https://doi.org/10.5066/P9HK9SSQ), were used to delineate watersheds and develop the peak-flow and low-flow regression equations used by StreamStats. The geospatial dataset described herein are the stream definition rasters with a 900 stream cell threshold at a 10-m resolution. The flow accumulation grid is used as input to create this dense stream grid. This requires a flow accumulation of 900 pixels or greater to initiate a stream channel. A value of 1 is assigned for all of the cells equal or greater than the threshold and no data for all other cells. Data are partitioned into four TIFF files, one for each of the four 8-digit Hydrologic Unit Code (HUC) areas for Puerto Rico: 21010002, 21010003, 21010004, and 21010005.

In 1991, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) began a study of more than 50 major river basins across the Nation as part of the National Water-Quality Assessment (NAWQA) project of the National Water-Quality Program. One of the major goals of the NAWQA project is to determine how water-quality conditions change over time. To support that goal, long-term consistent and comparable monitoring has been conducted on streams and rivers throughout the Nation. Outside of the NAWQA project, the USGS and other Federal, State, and local agencies also have collected long-term water-quality data to support their own assessments of changing water-quality conditions. Data from these multiple sources have been combined to support one of the most comprehensive assessment conducted to date of water-quality trends in the United States. Ultimately, these data will provide insight into how natural features and human activities have contributed to water-quality changes over time in Nation’s streams and rivers. This USGS data release contains all of the input and output files necessary to reproduce the results from the Weighted Regressions on Time, Discharge, and Season (WRTDS) models described in the associated U.S. Geological Survey Scientific Investigations Report. Data preparation for input to the models is also fully described in the above-mentioned report.

This data release provides topographic (horizontal and vertical) data for 78 sites, surveyed from November 2017 to July 2019 as part of documentation of flooding that occurred in Puerto Rico during and after Hurricane Maria (September to November 2017). Hurricane Maria made landfall the Island of Puerto Rico on September 20, 2017 and was one of the deadliest storms in U.S. history. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) personnel conducted topographic surveys at selected stream sites to facilitate hydraulic modeling of peak streamflows (or discharges) – termed indirect measurements – using published standard USGS methods and hydraulic modeling studies to establish new stage-discharge relations for sites at which flooding substantially changed the pre-existing relation. Indirect (post-flood) measurements are used to characterize flood peaks that could not be determined using direct methods (for example current-velocity meters, hydro-acoustic instruments or established stage-streamflow relations) because flood conditions exceeded the capabilities of those methods, streamgage sites could not be accessed during flooding, or safety issues precluded access by USGS personnel during flooding. The standard-step hydraulic method, often referred to as the step-backwater method, is a widely accepted one-dimensional hydraulic model to determine (theoretical) water-surface elevations at a location of interest for specified streamflows.

Regional regression equations were calculated in Puerto Rico with generalized least squares techniques to estimate flood frequency statistics at ungaged locations using drainage area as the only explanatory variable. The island was divided into 2 regions to minimize residuals. The region division that resulted in lower and more balanced residuals runs primarily north-south near the center of the island, mostly along an 8-digit hydrologic unit code (HUC8) boundary. The division line runs through a HUC8 polygon on the southern end of the island, but care was taken to include entire watersheds and consideration was given where hydrologic and physiographic properties differed. This data release includes geographic information system files that define the polygons for both regions.

These raster data represent spatially distributed elevation values in the Nevada StreamStats study area for the period of 2024.