Digital Elevation Model of Detroit Lake

Available digital elevation models (DEMs) from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) typically do not include the land surface topography (bathymetry) beneath the water surface of lakes and reservoirs. USGS personnel used Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to create a DEM for Detroit Lake using topographic maps from the time period before Detroit Dam was built (1953). Those data were then merged with field data from a coarse lake bathymetric survey conducted by USGS personnel in 2002. Using this newly combined surface dataset, a USGS temperature and suspended sediment model of Detroit Lake was constructed to evaluate its circulation, thermal stratification, and transport and fate of suspended sediments.