ScienceBase river bathymetry surveys in GeoPackage format

At present, 2026, USGS river bathymetry surveys in ScienceBase lack a consistent, standardized organizational structure which impedes discovery and use of these datasets. Standardization of USGS bathymetry surveys allows these data to be more easily identified, queried, and incorporated into any number of science applications across a range of spatial scales. This data release includes river bathymetry data published in ScienceBase that have been subsequently standardized into the GeoPackage format. A GeoPackage is an open-source geospatial format that can store both raster and vector files. The hydrographic address of the data is stored in the GeoPackage to enable queries of position relative to streamgages or upstream or downstream flow directions. Each GeoPackage is organized with a common set of logical relationships or schema. The schema used herein consists of multiple tables. A data table, as the name implies, contains the data itself in X, Y, Z format. The geometry table contains hydrographic addressing information derived from the minimal geospatial format necessary to represent data coverage, such as a coverage polygon or a line representing a cross-section that provides more spatial fidelity than a simple bounding box. Finally, a metadata table contains the column definitions, units, projection, and ellipsoid information required to perform batch projection and datum transformations of the datasets. This dataset is anticipated to be updated and versioned as additional bathymetry datasets are created, discovered, and processed into GeoPackages. 

The data release includes the following files:

1) The RiverSurvey Data Complier V103. This Microsoft Excel document contains visual Basic for Applications (VBA) macros that facilitate conditioning and formatting river survey data sets discovered on ScienceBase.

2) input_files.zip - this zip archive contains files generated from the RiverSurvey Data Compiler V103. For each of the 50 ScienceBase river bathymetry data sets that were processed with the RiverSurvey Data Compiler, a comma delimited text file and a Microsoft Excel macro worksheet were generated. These file names correspond to the ScienceBase identifier associated with a bathymetry data set. The 50 comma delimited files are used as input to a script that creates the associated GeoPackage. 

3) GeoPackages.zip - this zip archive contains the GeoPackages. Each GeoPackage contains the data table, geometry table, and a metadata table. 

4) v103_summary_results.csv - this comma delimited text file contains a summary of the 50 ScienceBase river bathymetry data sets that were processed to GeoPackages. Fields in this file include: the title of the ScienceBase data release, the ScienceBase item_id, a file path, the number of partitions, and the type of file partitioning.

5) SB_GeoPackage_Schema.json - this json file defines the schema used in each table in the GeoPackages and provides examples.