HYDAT
CD-ROM
Surface
Water and Sediment Data
Author: Atmospheric Environment
Service, Environment Canada
Disseminator: Greenland
Engineering Group
Version: 96-1.04 (Interim).
Copyright 1997. Issued July 24, 1998.
Data Time Span: 1850 to
1996
HYDAT
LIMITED USE SOFTWARE AND DATA PRODUCT LICENSE AGREEMENT
Contents:
Introduction
The HYDAT CD-ROM is an archive of daily and/or
instantaneous surface water and sediment data for all 2900 active and 5100
discontinued hydrometric stations across Canada. Rapid access to
these data is provided by the CD-ROM software interface which contains
options for viewing, extracting, and printing the selected data of interest.
Summary of the HYDAT CD-ROM Windows-based software
capabilities (Greenland Engineering Group, 1998):
-
View the list of stations by province, drainage basin,
and/or parameter
-
Sort stations by ID, name, province, data counts,
or dates
-
Select stations with a click of the mouse
-
Display reports for one or more selected stations
-
Search for specific stations using one or more of
the following criteria:
-
Parameter: searches for stations measuring the selected
parameter
-
Country: searches for stations across the entire
country
-
Province: searches for stations in the specified
province
-
Drainage: searches for stations in the specified
drainage area
-
Station Name: searches for stations which contain,
begin with, or end in a specified text string
-
Station ID: searches for stations by all or part
of their identification numbers
-
Station Latitude and Longitude: searches for stations
found at the specified location
-
Year: searches for stations that contain, begin,
or end with the specified year
-
Range: searches for stations that made any measurements
within the specified range of years
-
Counts: searches for stations with the specified
number of years of data
-
Save lists of selected stations to ASCII or binary
format files in order to save time when working repeatedly with customized
subsets
-
Export data in Canadian user, comma delimited, blank
delimited, Canadian binary, or USGS binary formats
HYDAT CD-ROM view, download or print output
parameters:
-
Data: daily and/or instantaneous stream
flow, water level, suspended sediment concentration, sediment particle
size, and sediment load.
-
Metadata: station identifier number,
named location, latitude/longitude location (DMS), periods of operation,
region drainage area (km2), and type of hydrometric data collected
at each site.
Getting
Started
To run the HYDAT software, insert the HYDAT CD-ROM
and run hydat.exe. Depending on the computer, hydat.exe will either
be installed on the hard drive, or you can run it directly from the CD
itself. A hydrology-related picture entertains while the CD is loading
the software. After the status bar is complete, a window with a menu
system and blank green content screen will pop-up.
Menu/Toolbar
Navigation
Menu choices:
1.File Menu:
-
Close - close the current displayed file.
-
Save As - save the current displayed file in .txt
format.
-
Print - print the current displayed file
-
Print Setup - format the print procedure and choose
a printer.
-
Exit - exit hydat.exe
2. Display Menu:
Any selection from this menu will pop-up a Station Selection screen like
this:
To select your station of interest, a
series of pull-down list boxes provide the choices of province, region
(by code), and parameter. The Drainage button lists descriptive
titles corresponding to each of the available region codes. A list
of all available stations is provided and can be sorted by ID, province,
name, beginning year, ending year.
Stations of interest can now either be selected
from this list or the search can be narrowed using the filter criteria
(see Features/Hints section). In the above example,
the station selection list was defined as Ontario 02 region. The
selected station from that list was Credit River At Erindale, which appears
in the Station Selected list.
Multiple stations may be selected as well.
To avoid reselecting these same stations you can save the stations as a
.set file (Save Set button) or as a .stnfile (Save button).
The .set file separates out the data type measurements sets for each of
the stations, whereas the .stn file is an ASCII list of the selected stations.
These station lists can then be reloaded another time using the Load
Set (*.set) or Get (*.stn) buttons.
To clear the list of selected stations, select
the Clear button.
There are several report options that can be chosen
for display (Display button). The different report types can
be selected either within the Station Selection window using the pull-down
Report
Type list box, or initially on the HYDAT Display menu itself.
Report types:
HYDAT Data:
Summary - displays descriptive summary statistics,
such as flow or level count, mean, maximum, minimum and monthly summaries
of flow or level count, standard deviation, skewness maximum, and minimum
for the selected station.
Daily - displays daily flow, level, sediment concentration,
or sediment load data one year at a time for the selected station.
Extreme - displays maximum flow or level values for
the selected station, along with the date of maximum flood.
Mean - displays the monthly mean flow/level values
for the selected station.
Sed. Sum. - displays historical and statistical information
about collected sediment data for the selected station.
Sed. Ins. - displays selected station data on instantaneous
suspended sediment, point-integrating particle-size analysis of suspended
sediment, instantaneous bed material particle-size analysis, and instantaneous
bed load particle-size analysis.
Metadata (HYDEX Data):
Header - displays metadata header information (station
id, name, lat/long, years of operation, location description, area)
Remarks - displays station's major remarks, such
as relocation information, upstream dam construction, etc.
Operations - displays general information such as
type of data the station collects, acency affiliation, etc.
Hydrometric - displays the hydrometric type, guage
type, and schedule type.
Sediment - displays the record type, data type, sampling
method and schedule type.
Review - displays the review type.
Equipment - displays the type of equipment used for
manual guage, recorder guage, sensor, pressure, interface, telemetry, data
gatherer.
3. Utitlities
Menu:
-
Select Station - Brings up the same Station Selection
window as above
-
List Datum Codes - lists the codes and associated
description of the water-level station guage data.
-
List Agency Codes - lists the codes and name of the
agencys responsible for station operations.
-
List Tributary Codes - lists the codes and associated
description of each water course.
-
Display Picture - displays a hydrology-related bitmap
as chosen from a list.
-
Configuration - allows configuration of the root
directory, CD-ROM drive and location for the output data symbol.
4. Export
Menu:
Once you have defined the subset of stations
that you wish to gather information for, you may export the data.
Again, the report type may be selected either from the Export menu, or
from the Exporting Hydat or Hydex Data window (shown below).
Select the province, report type, format
and parameter you wish to export. You may also specify a time period
for the data export. Choices of export format are as follows:
-
Canadian user (Card)
-
Comma delimited (.csv)
-
Blank delimited
-
Canadian binary
-
USGS binary
There are three options for amount of data to export:
station-by-station (Current Station radio button), the entire selected
station list (Selected List radio button), or the entire province
(Province
radio button). If you have not already selected
your stations or you wish to change your current list selection, you may
do so using the Select Stations button. If you choose to copy
station-by-station, you can change the current station either by the Change
Current Station button, or by using the <arrow> buttons.
To export the data, click the Export button.
A message box will first appear showing the copy period dates. If
the data copies successfully, you will get a message box saying so.
5. Help
Menus
Generally, the online help is excellet
in explaining various necessary steps. Help through keyword search
is extremely limited and not particularly useful. However, each window
contains a Help button or a Help menu option that, when clicked,
brings up a help screen pertaining to that specific window.
Features/Hints
Station Selection......Narrowing your search.
If, for example, you were interested in the stations
that pertain to a specific geographic region or a specific time period,
then you would use the Station Lookup button in the Station Selection
window.
The station selection window (shown below) will appear:
Search options include station name, ID, Lat/Long,
Operation Years, Range of Years, and Counts. You may also limit your
search by Province, or Drainage basin and you may sort your list.
Help
List of hydrometric stations by province/territory
(Greenland Engineering Group, 1998):
Examples of retrieved data (Environment Canada,
1998):
Links
to Other Sources of HYDAT Documentation
References
EALS, R. September 1998. HYDAT Intro.
Environment Canada. http://www.cmc.ec.gc.ca/climate/hydatintro.htm.
GLEASON, J. and E. GRAHAM. October 1998.
HYDAT CD-ROM. Greenland Engineering Group. http://www.grnland.com/sftware/EnvCan/HYDAT/Hydat.htm.
Created By: Map Library,
University of Toronto
Created On: 99/03/15
Last Updated: 99/06/16