As part of an ongoing effort to improve performance and reliability for the suite of USGS Hydrography web-based map services, the USGS is migrating the National Hydrography Dataset and Watershed Boundary Dataset services to a Cloud location.
National Hydrography Dataset (NHD) and Watershed Boundary Dataset (WBD) dynamic web-based map services currently served directly from USGS endpoints are migrating to new Cloud endpoints The migration will improve performance and reliability while keeping separate and independently consumable NHD and WBD services. These new Cloud endpoints also provide a more logical hierarchy for accessing USGS Hydrography web-based map services. This change will impact applications presently consuming the NHD and WBD layers from the previous service addresses.
USGS will provide a transition period through December 31, 2017. The previous endpoints from USGS servers will continue to be publicly accessible during this transition period. Users will need to use the new Cloud service endpoints to access the NHD or WBD dynamic services after the transition period ends. In addition, users consuming the services from the previous endpoints will need to update application configurations for display of the desired layers.
An announcement will be posted in the “What’s New” section on the The National Map website and information related to services on the “Links to Data Products and Map Services” page of the USGS Hydrography website will document these changes. For more information on the National Hydrography Dataset, Watershed Boundary Dataset, and NHDPlus High Resolution, visit the USGS Hydrography and The National Map websites.
Summary of changes to National Map Hydrography service endpoints
New USGS Hydrography web-based map service endpoints:
National Hydrography Dataset
- Function: Provides national hydrography data at 1:288,000 scale and below.
- Previous Endpoint: https://services.nationalmap.gov/arcgis/rest/services/nhd/MapServer
- New Cloud Endpoint:https://hydro.nationalmap.gov/arcgis/rest/services/nhd/MapServer
This new NHD endpoint no longer contains a (0) National Hydrography Dataset layer.
All other layers options remain unchanged, other than layer ordering/numbering.
Reference above endpoint for full descriptions of layer ordering.
National Watershed Boundary Dataset
- Function: Provides watershed boundary data at 1:74,000,000 scale and below.
- Previous Endpoint: https://services.nationalmap.gov/arcgis/rest/services/wbd/MapServer
- New Cloud Endpoint: https://hydro.nationalmap.gov/arcgis/rest/services/wbd/MapServer
This new WBD endpoint no longer contains a (0) Watershed Boundary Dataset layer.
All other layers options remain unchanged, other than layer ordering/numbering. See links above for full descriptions of layer ordering.
Reference above endpoint for full descriptions of layer ordering.
Hydrography (cached)
- Function: Provides a fast USGS Topo styled hydrography overlay at 1:74,000,000 to 1:9,000 scale.
- Endpoint: https://basemap.nationalmap.gov/arcgis/rest/services/USGSHydroCached/MapServer
This service was announced and made public March 2017 and is also available as a WMTS service.
No changes to endpoint.
For any questions, comments, or concerns regarding this update, contact Ariel Doumbouya (atdoumbouya@usgs.gov). Also, check out the October 2017 NHD Newsletter for more information regarding impacts to specific web map applications.