Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Skip to content

Try the next-generation Data Catalog at catalog-beta.data.gov and help shape it with your feedback.

The LakeCat Dataset: Accumulated Attributes for NHDPlusV2 (Version 2.1) Catchments for the Conterminous United States: Runoff

Metadata Updated: February 10, 2026

This dataset represents the estimated surface water runoff within individual local and accumulated upstream catchments for NHDPlusV2 Waterbodies. Catchment boundaries in LakeCat are defined in one of two ways, on-network or off-network. The on-network catchment boundaries follow the catchments provided in the NHDPlusV2 and the metrics for these lakes mirror metrics from StreamCat, but will substitute the COMID of the NHDWaterbody for that of the NHDFlowline. The off-network catchment framework uses the NHDPlusV2 flow direction rasters to define non-overlapping lake-catchment boundaries and then links them through an off-network flow table. The landscape layer (raster) was developed with a water-balance model developed by Dave Wolock of the USGS and is detailed further in the paper "Independent effects of temperature and precipitation on modeled runoff in the conterminous United States". McCabe and Wolock[2011] Runoff is defined as the flow per unit area delivered to streams and rivers in units of millimeters per month. The runoff estimates were summarized to produce local catchment-level and watershed-level metrics as a continuous data type.

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: See this page for license information.

Downloads & Resources

References

https://www.epa.gov/node/276204
https://edg.epa.gov/metadata/catalog/search/resource/details.page?uuid=15669D84-E7E5-4E53-9FC3-0E022B6F40C0

Dates

Metadata Created Date January 30, 2026
Metadata Updated Date February 10, 2026
Data Update Frequency R/P3Y

Metadata Source

Harvested from EPA Non Geo Repository

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date January 30, 2026
Metadata Updated Date February 10, 2026
Publisher U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Water,
Maintainer
Identifier 15669D84-E7E5-4E53-9FC3-0E022B6F40C0
Data First Published 2015-04-23
Language en-US
Data Last Modified 2023-11-13
Rights public (Data asset is or could be made publicly available to all without restrictions)
Category environment
Public Access Level public
Data Update Frequency R/P3Y
Bureau Code 020:00
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Metadata Catalog ID https://edg.epa.gov/data/nongeo_data.json
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Data Quality True
Data Dictionary https://www.epa.gov/national-aquatic-resource-surveys/lakecat-metrics-and-definitions
Data Dictionary Type text/html
Harvest Object Id 3e0f24a1-6af9-409f-86f0-c0fa30ea7b52
Harvest Source Id 9c1c2b5b-7925-4ca2-a663-ca2131653db1
Harvest Source Title EPA Non Geo Repository
Homepage URL https://www.epa.gov/national-aquatic-resource-surveys/lakecat-dataset
License https://edg.epa.gov/EPA_Data_License.html
Old Spatial -125.0,24.5,-66.5,49.5
Program Code 020:072
Related Documents https://www.epa.gov/node/276204, https://edg.epa.gov/metadata/catalog/search/resource/details.page?uuid=15669D84-E7E5-4E53-9FC3-0E022B6F40C0
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash f3bf67ef8211d5dcc952d01e6d96bd814b81d0623a39d4212f18c8e951bfde14
Source Schema Version 1.1
Spatial {"type": "Polygon", "coordinates": -125.0, 24.5, -125.0, 49.5, -66.5, 49.5, -66.5, 24.5, -125.0, 24.5}
Temporal 2015/2030

Didn't find what you're looking for? Suggest a dataset here.