Data from Across the USA Used to Assess the Uncertainty of Discharge Estimates Using a Modified Manning's Equation

An expanding effort exists to estimate discharge of rivers utilizing remote sensing measurements. The goal of this investigation is to evaluate the uncertainty associated with estimating streamflow using remote sensing practices. This data release contains in-situ observations of river width, depth, velocity, and discharge from 30 U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) gaged study reaches (USGSGagedTestSiteMeasurements.csv) obtained from the USGS National Water Information System (NWIS) Surface Water Field Measurements to assess the uncertainty associated with estimating discharge using a modified Manning's equation model. The R code (CalibrationObservationsExp_sampleRandomDF.R) was used to randomly sample observations for user defined sample sizes to test uncertainty related to calibration with limited observations. The ExperimentInputFiles zip file contains a subset of the USGS gaged observation dataset that served as input values to the attached R code found in the R_Script zip file. Geomorphic characteristics (parameters.csv) of the study reaches and associated drainage basins were used to investigate relations between site conditions and accuracy of discharge estimates obtained using the modified Manning's equation. Surface water height and slope data from the Tanana River near Fairbanks, Alaska (TananaRiver_Fairbanks_DynamicSurfaceWaterSlope.csv) were used to assess the influence of static and dynamic slope values on estimating discharge.