JORDAN COLE

SOUTH FORK NOOKSACK WATERSHED ANALYSIS

This labs analysis objective was to create a watershed model for the South Fork Nooksack
River, in northwestern Washington, as well as creating a functioning model in ModelBuilder that would
be useful to other analysts to use for different watersheds.

Methods
The purpose of this lab was to demonstrate flow direction, accumulation, and to create watershed
boundaries for the South Fork Nooksack River area. The processing was done with Digital Elevation
Models (DEM) of Whatcom County, polygon shapefiles of the South Fork Nooksack River watershed
area, and polyline shapefiles containing all the waterways in Whatcom County. Data was provided by
Western Washington University and the Spatial Analysis Lab archives.

JORDAN COLE
SOUTH FORK NOOKSACK WATERSHED ANALYSIS

Before I started any of the pre-processing, I projected all of the files into the NAD 1983 State
Plane Washington North (meters) Lambert Conformal Conic projection. I then clipped the streams
shapefile and the DEM to the South Fork Nooksack watershed area. I then used the fill sinks tool to
correct errors in the raster. The tool corrects for sinksholes in areas of the raster that the computer
would otherwise think would pool water, prohibiting flow. The next tool in the process was flow
direction. This tool runs a system that calculates the direction water would flow from one pixel to the
surrounding 8 pixels based on numerical codes that represent the elevation of the DEM. The pixels that
have the largest difference in numerical elevation values represent the direction in which the water

JORDAN COLE
SOUTH FORK NOOKSACK WATERSHED ANALYSIS

would flow.

JORDAN COLE
SOUTH FORK NOOKSACK WATERSHED ANALYSIS

Figure 1. Shows the direction in which water would flow if landing in a given area

JORDAN COLE
SOUTH FORK NOOKSACK WATERSHED ANALYSIS

The next tool used in flow accumulation. This tool creates an output that shows the amount of
pixels in the DEM that flow upstream to that point. This tool is useful because it shows which streams

JORDAN COLE
SOUTH FORK NOOKSACK WATERSHED ANALYSIS

have the most accumulated flow of water through them.

JORDAN COLE
SOUTH FORK NOOKSACK WATERSHED ANALYSIS

Figure 2. Flow accumulation is symbolized by greyscale color ramp. The areas in white have the highest water flow
accumulation, while the darkest have the least.

The next step was to create a stream network with the newly created stream accumulation as a
base. I started by changing the symbology for the stream accumulation layer into two classes with values
of 450. I arrived at this value by using a guess and check method, and chose 450 because it was the
threshold that best matched the streams vector file. Then, using raster calculator, I entered a formula to
produce a raster that used cells from the flow accumulation tool that were greater than the 450 threshold
I had found previously. This created a stream network.

JORDAN COLE
SOUTH FORK NOOKSACK WATERSHED ANALYSIS

After creating a stream network, I used the stream link tool to segment the stream raster. This
created a stream network that uniquely classified the stream raster between each point of stream

JORDAN COLE
SOUTH FORK NOOKSACK WATERSHED ANALYSIS

intersection.

JORDAN COLE
SOUTH FORK NOOKSACK WATERSHED ANALYSIS

Figure 3. The segmented stream network created with the stream link tool. There is unique symbology for each stream
segment.

JORDAN COLE
SOUTH FORK NOOKSACK WATERSHED ANALYSIS

After linking the streams, I used the stream order tool. This tool is used to classify streams by
order of magnitude, and in this case I chose Strahlers classification method. The smallest streams with
no diverging stream are classified as first order streams. Once another stream intersects with another
stream that becomes a stream of the next order; 2. The Nooksack River is the largest order stream in this

JORDAN COLE
SOUTH FORK NOOKSACK WATERSHED ANALYSIS

water, being a 6th order stream.

JORDAN COLE
SOUTH FORK NOOKSACK WATERSHED ANALYSIS

Figure 4. Strahler's stream classification method. The South Fork Nooksack watershed culminates with a 6th order stream.

JORDAN COLE
SOUTH FORK NOOKSACK WATERSHED ANALYSIS

To determine the total length of flow that water must take to connect to the highest order stream
in the watershed, I used the flow length tool. This tool symbolizes the length, or amount of flow, it takes
a stream to reach the highest order stream upstream or downstream. For the purposes of this lab, I chose
the flow length downstream to reach the highest order stream. The output is symbolized by areas of blue
indicating a shorter flow distance to travel to meet a higher order stream, while red symbolizes areas that

JORDAN COLE
SOUTH FORK NOOKSACK WATERSHED ANALYSIS

take longer flow lengths to complete a higher stream order.

JORDAN COLE
SOUTH FORK NOOKSACK WATERSHED ANALYSIS

Figure 5. Flow length signifies the length of flow for a stream to reach a stream of higher order. Blue signifies less flow length,
while red signifies longer flow length.

JORDAN COLE
SOUTH FORK NOOKSACK WATERSHED ANALYSIS

After creating a stream network and finding flow length, I set to find sub watersheds within the
larger South Fork Nooksack Watershed. There are usually smaller sub-watersheds that can be found
within larger watershed areas. In this specific case, I found that there were six sub-watersheds in the
greater South Fork Nooksack watershed area. To find this, created feature class points which I named
outlets. I made points at the confluence of each intersection of 5th and 6th order streams. Then, using the
watershed tool I indicated the outlet points as my snap pour points and incorporating my previously

JORDAN COLE
SOUTH FORK NOOKSACK WATERSHED ANALYSIS

created flow accumulation outputs to create 6 new sub-watersheds.

JORDAN COLE
SOUTH FORK NOOKSACK WATERSHED ANALYSIS

Figure 6. Six sub-watersheds created within the South Fork Nooksack River watershed area. Created by setting points at the
confluence of all 5th and 6th order stream intersections and then using the watershed tool.

JORDAN COLE
SOUTH FORK NOOKSACK WATERSHED ANALYSIS

Using the watershed tool once again I delineated catchments. The purpose of using this tool
was to create a new raster that represented the sub-watersheds (portions of watershed between stream
intersections). Catchments are similar to stream segments, in that they indicate segments of the stream
that are between stream intersections. However, this new layer differs in that it shows the entire

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SOUTH FORK NOOKSACK WATERSHED ANALYSIS

watershed that corresponds to each stream segment, being displayed as polygons instead of polylines.

JORDAN COLE
SOUTH FORK NOOKSACK WATERSHED ANALYSIS

Figure 7. Catchments are uniquely symbolized to the extent of catchments in the South Fork Nooksack watershed.

JORDAN COLE
SOUTH FORK NOOKSACK WATERSHED ANALYSIS

I then used the Utility Network Analyst toolbar to turn on the flow direction arrows for the
stream network I created. I then created a geometric network with the streams and outlet vector files.
Since ArcMap already knows elevation and flow direction of my model, I simply signified where the
sink was at the lowest point in the raster, and ArcMap did the rest. The final product showed the

JORDAN COLE
SOUTH FORK NOOKSACK WATERSHED ANALYSIS

direction of stream flow using stream direction arrows.

JORDAN COLE
SOUTH FORK NOOKSACK WATERSHED ANALYSIS

Figure 8. Arrows indicate flow direction of streams in the South Fork Nooksack watershed.

This information, along with the model built to create these data, can be used to model data in
other watersheds by other analysts. By setting model parameters in the model, the model can be used for
any watershed in the world with the proper starting components.