Elevation-Derived Hydrography READ Rules: Artificial Path

An Artificial Path is an abstraction to facilitate hydrologic modeling through open waterbodies.

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Attribute/Attribute Value

Each feature requires domain codes to be entered into the attribute table for the feature class (Elevation-Derived Hydrography Feature type description, associated geometry, and use classification table in the Elevation-Derived Hydrography Data Acquisition Specifications 2023 revision A2). See “Field Definitions and Domain Values for Attributes” section for more information on Elevation-Derived Hydrography code definitions.

Delineation

The limit of artificial path is the connection between the inflow and outflow points of an in-line polygon, the line through a head or terminal open waterbody that connects to the inflow (for terminal), or the outflow point (for head).

Representation Rules

When delineating a feature, it must be created with the appropriate geometry, either point, line, or polygon, which is determined by the size of the feature or the length along different axes of the feature (table 1).

Special conditions: none.

Table 1. Artificial Path representation rules.
Kind of feature object	Area	Shortest Axis	Longest Axis
0-dimensional (point)	-	-	-
1-dimensional (line)	-	greater than 0	-
2-dimensional (polygon)	-	-	-

Data Extraction

Capture Conditions

Artificial paths shall be placed in all polygons except isolated lake/ponds, and isolated basins (lake/ponds, and basins not connected to the stream network). Artificial paths shall represent the shortest path from the inflow to the outflow without crossing through banks or islands.

Attribute Information

FClass 1— Hydrography feature defined within the collection criteria of the elevation-derived hydrography specifications.

FCode 55800—Artificial path (abstraction to facilitate hydrologic modeling through open waterbodies).

EClass 2— Linear hydrographic features that follow the elevation surface.

Source Interpretation Guidelines

None.

An image showing an area of land with a hill shade elevation product. In the middle is light blue polygon representing a lake — This is a diagram showing the artificial path inflow and outflow points of a lake/pond feature.

A graphic with two images. The main image is an elevation hill shade with light blue lines and polygons representing lakes, s — Example of artificial path features in Lake Fannie in Minnesota. Source data are from the National Hydrography Dataset (U.S. Geological Survey, 2020), which is used to provide examples of hydrographic feature types but may not have the same density and other characteristics of elevation-derived hydrography.