A Reservoir Morphology Database for the Conterminous United States

The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Reservoir Fisheries Habitat Partnership, combined multiple national databases for the purpose of calculating new morphological metrics not included in the original databases for 3,828 reservoirs. These new metrics include, but are not limited to, shoreline development index, index of basin permanence, and development of volume and other descriptive metrics based on established morphometric formulas. The new database also contains modeled chemical and physical metrics. Because of the nature of the existing databases used to compile the Reservoir Morphology Database and the inherent missing data, some metrics were not populated when data was missing. The Reservoir Morphology Database will assist reservoir managers in characterizing reservoirs throughout the continental United States.