Radar-based field measurements of gage-height and surface velocity and resulting cross-sectional area and discharge from 80 U.S. Geological Survey streamgages for various locations in Texas, 2021–24

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), in cooperation with the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT), deployed RQ-30 surface velocimetry sensors (hereinafter referred to as “RQ-30 sensors”) made by Sommer Messtechnik to collect radar gage-height data, cross section area, surface velocity, learned surface velocity, discharge, and learned discharge at 80 streamgages located in stream reaches with varying hydrologic and hydraulic characteristics. Land-use types in the contributing drainage basins included agricultural, forest, mixed, and coastal, that are common in central, east, and southeast Texas. Many of the drainage basins and streams have relatively low gradients. To test the efficacy of the remote-sensing methods, the RQ-30 sensors were deployed for 1 to 3 years to capture and compute data over a range of hydraulic conditions. Continuous time series of radar-measured gage-height and surface velocity and radar-derived cross-sectional area, learned surface velocity, discharge, and learned discharge were recorded at 5-minute intervals. Discharge data were computed by using radar-derived cross-sectional area and surface velocity data, whereas learned discharge were computed by using radar-derived cross-sectional area and learned surface velocity. The two types of discharge data obtained with the RQ-30 sensors were compared to discharge data computed by using the standard USGS stage-discharge methods. For each of the 80 streamgages, information regarding the USGS site number, station name, location, datum, installation date, and data start date, can be found in the file named "Station Metadata.csv" included with this release.

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  "010:12"
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[
  "geospatial"
]