Neponset River Watershed StreamStats

In Massachusetts, a watershed-scale application for the Neponset River Watershed was developed to support stakeholder efforts to address stormwater challenges in this urbanized basin. The Neponset River Watershed stormwater functionality was developed using 1-meter resolution lidar-derived elevation data and municipal storm drain data to accurately represent urban topography and surface and subsurface stormwater flow. Using the Neponset River Watershed StreamStats application, users can view the network of stormwater pipes and storm-drain inlets, delineate drainage areas derived from lidar topography and stormwater infrastructure, and compute land-use/land-cover basin characteristics. The available land-use/land-cover basin characteristics were developed to represent aggregated land uses for which pollutant load export rates are defined in the 2016 Massachusetts Small Municipal Separate Storm Sewer System (MS4) General Permit.

Related data and metadata may be found in two associated data releases:

• Luongo, L.E., Steeves, P.A, and Spaetzel, A.B., 2026, Digital elevation model and derivative datasets to support the integration of stormwater drainage into the StreamStats application in the Neponset River Watershed, Massachusetts (ver. 2.0, September 2026): U.S. Geological survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P1LEUJMG.
• Luongo, L.E., Steeves, P.A., and Spaetzel, A.B., 2026, Basin characteristics data for the StreamStats application in the Neponset River watershed, Massachusetts, 2026: U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P1NFQWFI. 

Click on this link to obtain general information on the Neponset River Watershed application as well as specific sources and computation methods for basin characteristics.