River margin and braid shapefiles for the lower, middle, and upper reaches of the Elwha River, Washington, 2006 to 2022
This dataset provides GIS shapefiles of river margins and braids derived from 30 aerial imagery datasets of the Elwha River, Washington spanning June 2006 through September 2022. The extent of the river's recently active flow zone, or margins, and river braids was manually digitized in a GIS using aerial orthoimages to capture changes in the river prior to, during, and after the removal of the Glines Canyon and Elwha dams, which started in 2011 and ended in 2014. We used aerial orthoimages collected by the National Park Service, the U.S. Geological Survey, the Washington State Department of Transportation, and the National Agriculture Imaging Program, including 24 orthoimages derived from Structure-from-Motion (SfM) photogrammetry using a plane-mounted camera system designed for the Elwha River Restoration Project (Ritchie and others, 2025). Five of the image sets were collected before dam removal (2006-2011) and 25 represent conditions during and after dam removal. To document changes associated with dam operations and dam removal, river margins and braids are provided for three separate reaches of the Elwha River: 1) the lower river, downstream of the historic Elwha Dam site, 2) the middle river, located between the former Lake Aldwell reservoir and the historic Glines Canyon Dam site and 3) a control reach located upstream of the former Lake Mills reservoir, at the downstream end of Geyser Valley where there is no influence of dams or dam removal on channel evolution.
Find Related Datasets
Search by Tags
Click any tag below to search for similar datasets
Complete Metadata
| @type | dcat:Dataset |
|---|---|
| accessLevel | public |
| bureauCode |
[ "010:12" ] |
| contactPoint |
{ "fn": "PCMSC Science Data Coordinator", "@type": "vcard:Contact", "hasEmail": "mailto:pcmsc_data@usgs.gov" } |
| description | This dataset provides GIS shapefiles of river margins and braids derived from 30 aerial imagery datasets of the Elwha River, Washington spanning June 2006 through September 2022. The extent of the river's recently active flow zone, or margins, and river braids was manually digitized in a GIS using aerial orthoimages to capture changes in the river prior to, during, and after the removal of the Glines Canyon and Elwha dams, which started in 2011 and ended in 2014. We used aerial orthoimages collected by the National Park Service, the U.S. Geological Survey, the Washington State Department of Transportation, and the National Agriculture Imaging Program, including 24 orthoimages derived from Structure-from-Motion (SfM) photogrammetry using a plane-mounted camera system designed for the Elwha River Restoration Project (Ritchie and others, 2025). Five of the image sets were collected before dam removal (2006-2011) and 25 represent conditions during and after dam removal. To document changes associated with dam operations and dam removal, river margins and braids are provided for three separate reaches of the Elwha River: 1) the lower river, downstream of the historic Elwha Dam site, 2) the middle river, located between the former Lake Aldwell reservoir and the historic Glines Canyon Dam site and 3) a control reach located upstream of the former Lake Mills reservoir, at the downstream end of Geyser Valley where there is no influence of dams or dam removal on channel evolution. |
| distribution |
[ { "@type": "dcat:Distribution", "title": "Digital Data", "format": "XML", "accessURL": "https://doi.org/10.5066/P13RXGHA", "mediaType": "application/http", "description": "Landing page for access to the data" }, { "@type": "dcat:Distribution", "title": "Original Metadata", "format": "XML", "mediaType": "text/xml", "description": "The metadata original format", "downloadURL": "https://data.usgs.gov/datacatalog/metadata/USGS.67102a7ad34edd269209626c.xml" } ] |
| identifier | http://datainventory.doi.gov/id/dataset/USGS_67102a7ad34edd269209626c |
| keyword |
[ "CMGP", "Coastal and Marine Geology Program", "Elwha Dam (historical)", "Elwha River", "Glines Canyon Dam (historical)", "Lake Aldwell (historical)", "Lake Mills (historical)", "Olympic National Park", "PCMSC", "Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center", "State of Washington", "U.S. Geological Survey", "USGS", "USGS:67102a7ad34edd269209626c", "aerial photography", "elevation", "field inventory and monitoring", "geographic information systems (GIS)", "image collections", "image mosaics", "inlandWaters", "remote sensing", "river bank", "river channel", "river reaches", "river systems", "sediment deposition", "time series datasets" ] |
| modified | 2025-05-20T00:00:00Z |
| publisher |
{ "name": "U.S. Geological Survey", "@type": "org:Organization" } |
| spatial | -123.618082, 47.940374, -123.536187, 48.154180 |
| theme |
[ "geospatial" ] |
| title | River margin and braid shapefiles for the lower, middle, and upper reaches of the Elwha River, Washington, 2006 to 2022 |
