National Hydrography Data - NHD and 3DHP

The NHD supports many applications, such as making maps, geocoding observations, flow modeling, data maintenance, and stewardship. For additional information on NHD, go to usgs.gov/core-science-systems/ngp/national-hydrography. DWR was the steward for NHD and Watershed Boundary Dataset (WBD) in California.

We worked with other organizations to edit and improve NHD and WBD, using the business rules for California. California's NHD improvements were sent to USGS for incorporation into the national database. The most up-to-date products are accessible from the USGS website.

Please note that the California portion of the National Hydrography Dataset is appropriate for use at the 1:24,000 scale. For additional derivative products and resources, including the major features in geopackage format, please go to this page: data.cnra.ca.gov/dataset/nhd-major-features Archives of previous statewide extracts of the NHD going back to 2018 may be found at data.cnra.ca.gov/dataset/nhd-archive.

In September 2022, USGS officially notified DWR that the NHD would become static as USGS resources will be devoted to the transition to the new 3D Hydrography Program (3DHP). 3DHP will consist of LiDAR-derived hydrography at a higher resolution than NHD. Upon completion, 3DHP data will be easier to maintain, based on a modern data model and architecture, and better meet the requirements of users that were documented in the Hydrography Requirements and Benefits Study (2016).

The initial releases of 3DHP include NHD vector data incorporated into the 3DHP data model. As new elevation-derived hydrography is created for California, that geometry will replace the legacy NHD vectors in the 3DHP dataset. It will take several years for the 3DHP to be built out for California.

Please refer to the resources on this page for more information. The FINAL, STATIC version of the National Hydrography Dataset for California was published for download by USGS on December 27, 2023. This dataset can no longer be edited by the state stewards.

The current generation of national hydrography data is the USGS 3D Hydrography Program (3DHP). USGS maintains a 3DHP feature service which is updated quarterly, and provides a downloadable dataset that will updated once per year. Questions about the California stewardship of these datasets may be directed to nhd_stewardship@water.ca.gov.