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One Meter Topobathymetric Digital Elevation Model for Lake Powell, Arizona-Utah, 1947-2018

June 4, 2020

To support the modeling of the Colorado River water storage area capacity tables by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Utah Water Science Center in the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area in Utah and Arizona, the USGS Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center has created an integrated 1-meter topobathymetric digital elevation model (TBDEM) for Lake Powell, the second largest man-made reservoir in the United States. Located in south-central Utah and north-central Arizona, Lake Powell is a reservoir on the Colorado River created by the flooding of a natural canyon by the construction of Glen Canyon Dam. The new Lake Powell TBDEM consists of the best available multi-source topographic and bathymetric elevation data for Lake Powell onshore and offshore areas. The Lake Powell TBDEM integrates three different data sources including topographic light detection and ranging (lidar) point cloud data, multibeam bathymetric surveys, and historic topographic surveys obtained from the Department of the Interior (DOI) Bureau of Reclamation (BOR) and USGS Woods Hole Coastal Marine Science Center. The topographic, bathymetric, and historic topographic surveys were sorted and prioritized based on survey date, accuracy, spatial distribution, and point density to develop a TBDEM model based on the best available elevation data. The Lake Powell TBDEM spatial resolution is 1-meter with the general location ranging from Glen Canyon Dam northwest of Page, Arizona to White Canyon, Utah with elevations from 948.28 meters to 1440.94 meters referenced to North American Vertical Datum of 1988 (NAVD88), National Geodetic Survey Geoid 12B. The topographic lidar survey was acquired from 4/2/18 to 4/3/18. The bathymetry survey was acquired from 10/8/17 to 11/15/17. The historic topographic surveys ranged from 1947-1959. Some of the nearshore void zone (not covered by lidar or multibeam) was filled with historic topographic surveys digitized from historical maps from 1947-1959 and a kriging interpolation as published by the USGS Coastal National Elevation Database (CoNED) Applications Project at https://doi.org/10.2112/SI76-008. Additional information regarding the CoNED Applications Project is located at https://www.usgs.gov/land-resources/eros/coned.

Publication Year 2020
Title One Meter Topobathymetric Digital Elevation Model for Lake Powell, Arizona-Utah, 1947-2018
DOI 10.5066/P9XX0J1Y
Authors Jeffrey J Danielson, Dean Tyler, Sandra Poppenga
Product Type Data Release
Record Source USGS Digital Object Identifier Catalog
USGS Organization Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center