Flow direction grid at 1 kilometer resolution for North Slope drainage basins, Alaska

We derived and evaluated a 1 kilometer spatial resolution flow direction grid for the terrestrial drainage of the North Slope of Alaska. The region is resolved by 182,722 grid cells and the associated connectivity. It is bounded by the Brooks Range and Beaufort Sea coast, and extends from the northern Chukchi Sea coast eastward to the small rivers near 140 degrees West. The dataset is provided in raster and tabular format, with the latter including coordinates, river basin identifier, and downstream reach and direction for each grid cell in the region. Over three dozen river basins are identified by name in an associated lookup table. This new mapping resolves the terrestrial drainages for rivers exporting freshwater, nutrients, and other materials to Elson, Simpson, Jago, Kaktovik, and other coastal lagoons at a resolution that captures important processes linked to surface and subsurface hydrological flows. Our analysis suggests that the mapping exhibits notable similarity in basin area boundaries relative to the benchmark USGS National Hydrography Dataset.