Download Data with StreamStats

Learn how to use StreamStats python library to download watershed boundary data available in USGS StreamStats API. StreamStats provides information including HUC code, a GeoJSON representation of the polygon associated with the watershed, and basin characteristics.

Import Packages

Download the necessary Python packages. The GeoPandas package is an open source project that assists in working with geospatial data in Python. Learn more about GeoPandas.

import streamstats
import geopandas as gpd

Identify watershed

To identify a HUC, use a latitude and longitude value to select a specific watershed. Assign cordinates to variables lat and lon. Using StreamStat’s data, assign location to a variable that will represent the delineated watershed using the USGS StreamStats API.

lat, lon = 39.966256, -105.482227
ws = streamstats.Watershed(lat=lat, lon=lon)

Find boundary properties of the watershed

ws.boundary is a stored variable in the watershed object and will return the full watershed GeoJSON as a dictionary. You can access the CRS through the GeoJSON object.

ws.boundary
ws.boundary['crs']

Out:

{'type': 'ESPG', 'properties': {'code': 4326}}

Create plot of the Watershed

Open the GeoJSON with GeoPandas and plot the data.

ws.boundary
poly = gpd.GeoDataFrame.from_features(ws.boundary["features"], crs="EPSG:4326")
ax = poly.plot(figsize=(20, 10), edgecolor='k')
ax.set_title("Single Watershed", fontsize=30, fontweight = 'bold')
ax.set_axis_off()