Radar-based field measurements of surface velocity and discharge from 10 U.S. Geological Survey streamgages for various locations in the United States, 2002-19

Near-field remote sensing methods were used to collect Doppler velocity and pulsed stage radar data at 10 conventional U.S. Geological Survey streamgages in river reaches with varying hydrologic and hydraulic characteristics. Basin sizes ranged from 381 to 66,200 square kilometers and included agricultural, desert, forest, mixed, and high-gradient mountain environments. During the siting and operational phases, radar-derived mean-channel (mean) velocity and discharge were computed using the Probability Concept (PC) and were compared against conventional instantaneous measurements and stage-discharge time series. During siting phase, radars were located, installed, and PC parameters computed. To test the efficacy of the remote-sensing methods, radars were deployed for extended periods of time to capture a range of hydraulic conditions. During operational phase, continuous time series of radar-derived surface velocity and discharge and stage-discharge were recorded, computed, and transmitted contemporaneously and continuously in real time every 5 to 15 minutes. Data are presented in two compressed (zipped) folders and one comma-separated value (CSV) file. One folder contains the radar-derived discharge values. One folder contains the stage-discharge values that were used to check the accuracy of radar-derived values. The CSV file contains siting and validation values used to derive the discharge values for the radar time series.