Great Lakes (GL) basin and subbasin boundaries for the Large Basin Runoff Model (LBRM) developed by the NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory
Thomas E. Croley II, Holly C. Hartmann
These are the Great Lakes basin and subbasin boundaries developed to support the Large Basin Runoff Model (LBRM). The boundaries were digitized by the NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory in the 1980s. These files are based on the State Hydrologic Unit maps from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), and on the drainage basin map overlays from the Water Resources Branch of the Inland Waters Directorate of Environment Canada for Ontario. Subbasins that did not drain directly into one of the Great Lakes were combined with those into which they drained so that all resulting subbasins have a direct outlet to the lake. These boundaries were mapped to a 1 km grid with independent polyconic projections for each lake basin (Superior, Michigan, Huron, St Clair, Erie, Ontario). The data provided here are shapefiles projected to the geographic coordinate system WGS84. For reference the original latitude and longitude tabular data and figures are included. The basins are labeled as follows:
ER = Lake Erie
GEO = Georgian Bay and the North Channel, Lake Huron
HU = Lake Huron (main lake)
MIC = Lake Michigan
ON = Lake Ontario
STC = Lake St. Clair
SUP = Lake Superior
The Laurentian Great Lakes hydrologic basin and subbasin boundaries were developed to support the Large Basin Runoff Model (LBRM). The LBRM was developed by Croley (1982) to estimate overland water flow into the Great Lakes which is one component of the water balance needed to estimate and forecast Great Lakes water levels.
These data are free and open for public use. Note due to the methods used when these boundaries were digitized, the shapefiles included here preserve area, but generalize the shape and boundary locations. There are small gaps and overlaps between the lake basins when all basin boundaries are displayed together because these lake basins were digitized separately using a projection customized for each particular basin. The difference in area between these basins and modern delineations (e.g., Watershed Boundary Dataset) are less than 1%.
Croley II, T.E., 1982. Great Lakes basins runoff modeling. NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, Ann Arbor, MI. NOAA Tech. Memo. ERL GLERL, 39, p.96. https://www.glerl.noaa.gov/pubs/tech_reports/glerl-039/tm-039.pdf
Croley II, T.E., 1983a. Great Lake basins (USA-Canada) runoff modeling. Journal of Hydrology, 64(1-4), pp.135-158. https://doi.org/10.1016/0022-1694(83)90065-3
Croley II, T.E., 1983b. Lake Ontario basin runoff modeling. NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, Ann Arbor, MI. NOAA Tech. Memo. ERL GLERL, 43, p.108. https://www.glerl.noaa.gov/pubs/tech_reports/glerl-043/tm-043.pdf
Croley II, T.E., 1984. Lake Superior basin runoff modeling. NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, Ann Arbor, MI. NOAA Tech. Memo. ERL GLERL, 50, p.284. https://www.glerl.noaa.gov/pubs/tech_reports/glerl-050/tm-050.pdf
Inland Waters Directorate (1979): Surface water data reference index, Canada, 1979. Water Resources Branch, Water Survey of Canada, Ottawa, Ont. 304 pp.
U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), 1974a. Hydrologic unit map - 1974 State of Indiana. U.S. Geological Survey, Reston, VA 22092. https://doi.org/10.3133/hu14
U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), 1974b. Hydrologic unit map - 1974, Michigan. U.S. Geological Survey, Reston, VA 22092. https://doi.org/10.3133/hu22
U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), 1974c. Hydrologic unit map - 1974, Minnesota. U.S. Geological Survey, Reston, VA 22092. https://doi.org/10.3133/hu23
U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), 1974d. Hydrologic unit map - 1974, New York. U.S. Geological Survey, Reston, VA 22092. https://doi.org/10.3133/hu32
U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), 1974e. Hydrologic unit map - 1988, Ohio. U.S. Geological Survey, Reston, VA 22092. https://doi.org/10.3133/hu35
U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), 1974f. Hydrologic unit map - 1974, State of Pennsylvania. U.S. Geological Survey, Reston, VA 22092. https://doi.org/10.3133/hu39
U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), 1974g. Hydrologic unit map - 1974, Wisconsin. U.S. Geological Survey, Reston, VA 22092. https://doi.org/10.3133/hu49
U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), 1975. Hydrologic unit map - 1974 State of Illinois. U.S. Geological Survey, Reston, VA 22092. https://doi.org/10.3133/hu13
OAR Data Manager (oar.glerl.data@noaa.gov)
Metadata dateStamp: 2021-06-04T15:19:00Z