Lab 14

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South Dakota State University *

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Course

132

Subject

Geography

Date

Dec 6, 2023

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doc

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5

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Geography 132: Physical Geography-Natural Landscapes + Lab Lab #5 (30 Points) Chapter 14: River Systems and Landforms Ella Jolin Part I On the USGS real-time water data website, find a stream gage that is close to where you live or work. Click on the state. Then hover over a couple of the gages to see if you can determine the location. The stream gage south of Brookings is site number 06480000. When you find the site, an entire page comes up with data on that gauge. Make sure the box at the top of the page says “Time-Series: Current/Historical.” In the next box, where it says “Available Parameters,” “Output,” and “Days” change Days from 7 to 30. The first graph is the discharge (in CFS). In the sample graph above (from 2011), you can immediately see that the amount of water flowing past the stream gauge has gone down for the last 30 days (the blue line). One interesting thing they include on this graphic is the median statistics. This means that the discharge over the history of the station (57 years in this case) has had as many days over the triangle as below. So, for the last 57 years, there have been 28 years where water has been higher than the triangle, and 28 years when the water has been below the triangle on the same date.
1. Copy and paste this graphic from your site here: (4 points) 2. Explain the discharge curve and how it compares to the median values: (4 points) The discharge curve shows that over the past month the Missouri River flowing through Sioux City, Iowa has gradually increased over time in the amount of water flowing through the stream gauge. It is super interesting to see the median values within this graph as well. The median values show a much lower amount of water passing through the stream gauge and really show the difference in just how much water is flowing through. The second graph (also from 2011) displays the actually height of the stream at the gage. This is the base information from which all the other data are derived.
The key information on this graph is how high the gage height is above the flood stage. This graph shows that while the stream height has been going down for the last 30 days, it is still almost a foot above the flood stage. The flood stage is the level at which the stream is officially considered flooded. The stream height can go up and down quite a bit and still be considered ‘normal.’ 3. Copy and paste your Gage Height graph here: (4 points)
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