The NHD Update Tool will be available within the next month and the NHD Utilities are now available on the HDC SharePoint page. Users who have complete NHD Update Tool Training use the tool to edit the NHD. If you are an NHD editor and need access to the HDC SharePoint, please email National Hydrography Support. The NHD Utilities 3.5.3.0 are compliant with NHD Model v2.3.1. Specifically, the NHDMerge Utility works with NHD Model v2.3.1.

The NHD Update Tool has undergone several changes to improve the data quality, Globus troubleshooting, and offline functionality:

• Last summer, the NHD Update Tool switched to using Globus Connect Personal (GCP) to transfer jobs between the USGS and users. As we have learned more about problems that arise while using GCP, our developers have sought to streamline GCP Troubleshooting. As such, they added an option to logout from GCP, as well as reinitializing endpoints. Both options will help during troubleshooting sessions with users.
  
   
• Last June, USGS, in concert with users, discovered issues related to Invalid Geometry Checks due to Duplicate Vertices. The NHD Update Tool does have a Repair Geometry Utility, but it was not designed to fix duplicate vertices errors. The new Repair Geometry Utility now simplifies line features with duplicate features within a 10 cm tolerance, then runs the Fix Microgaps Utility to ensure the line simplification did not accidently create a Microgap.

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• The new version of the NHD Update Tool allows users to edit the InNetwork attribute and runs QC checks to ensure valid InNetwork and FlowDirection combinations. Users can edit the InNetwork attribute using the NHD Editor, add and Import Geometry tasks, as well as with the Modify Attribute task. The NHD Editor Apply Rules process will not allow a feature to be InNetwork=YES and FlowDirection=Uninitialized. A severity 1 Database Integrity check will also ensure no features have the combination above.
  
   
• The Drainageway QC check ensures Drainageway features are located at the start of NHDFlowline networks. It returns a severity 1 error Flow Check if a Drainageway feature is located elsewhere.
  
   
• The FCode/FType QC Database Integrity check returns a severity 1 error if the FType does not match the FCode.
  
   
• The Offline Editing Reachcode Allocation Warning will now notify a user if they attempt to allocate reachcodes off-line, regardless of whether the user had connectivity at the beginning of the job. Users may lose connectivity to the reachcode allocator webservice for a variety of reasons, including their computer being disconnected from the internet or the USGS webservices being offline.
  
   
• View Workflow allows NHD Update Tool users to get a status of NHD jobs. If the user’s machine is not connected to the internet or the USGS Workflow Manager is down, the user will now get the last known status of the job, instead of no information.
  
   
• Finally, the NHD Update QC now performs auto-fixes by default on certain QC checks. This simplifies the user experience while performing QC checks. The impacted QCs are Invalid Geometry checks, which will run the repair geometry; Database Integrity checks, which will run Assign Waterbody Area PermID; and  Pseudo Nodes will run fix pseudo nodes.