Inundation metrics by 10-km bend, Lower Missouri River Floodplain

This is a shapefile of points summarizing inundation metrics and geomorphic variables for bends in the downstream-most 800 km of the Lower Missouri River. Points are located at the centroids of 10-km bends of the river. The metrics were developed through analysis of inundation maps calculated from a 1-dimensional hydraulic model for the channel and floodplain. Water-surface elevations were extended across the valley bottom and intersected with lidar-derived floodplain topography to calculate inundation depth and extent on a daily basis. Detailed methods are documented in Bulliner and others (2017). We evaluated longitudinal spatial variation by aggregating floodplain inundation estimates by Thiessen polygons centered at 1-km address points along the Lower Missouri River channel navigation line and extending to the valley walls. The Thiessen polygons sample the area of the floodplain so that the attributes within the polygon are geometrically closest to the address point. These data were then aggregated into 10-km reaches to associate inundation metrics (in average hectare-days per year) with potential explanatory variables that had been developed in previous studies (Jacobson and others, 2017; Jacobson and others, 2018). The explanatory variables in the dataset quantify hypothesized physical controls on inundation at the 10-km reach scale; that is, they do not include fine-scale details of bathymetry or topography. We summarized the inundation metrics for the existing conditions, wherein only floodplain area river-ward of the levees (batture area) is inundated, and for the entire floodplain, for both historical daily discharges (1930 – 2012) and for the future-climate-adjusted daily discharge scenario for the same time series. The data are summarized as point attributes in the released shapefile. Bulliner, E.A., Lindner, G., Bouska, K., Jacobson, R.B., and Paukert, C., 2017, Science to Inform Management of Floodplain Conservation Lands under Non-Stationary Conditions U.S. Geological Survey Data Release, https://doi.org/10.5066/F7HM56KG. Jacobson, R.B., Elliott, C.M., and Bulliner, E.A., 2017, Missouri River bend classification data sets: U.S. Geological Survey Data Release, U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/F7FF3R9D. Jacobson, R.B., Colvin, M.E., Bulliner, E.A., Pickard, D., and Elliott, C.M., 2018, Bend-scale geomorphic classification and assessment of the Lower Missouri River from Sioux City, Iowa, to the Mississippi River for application to pallid sturgeon management 2018-5069, 46 p., https://doi.org/10.3133/sir20185069.