The National Hydrography Dataset (NHD) is a feature-based database that interconnects and uniquely identifies the sream segments or reaches that comprise the nation's surface water drainage system. Medium resolution NHD is based on the content of the U.S. Geological Survey 1:100,000-scale Digital Line Graph (DLG) hydrography data, integrated with reach-related information from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Reach File Version 3.0 (RF3). More specifically, it contains reach codes for networked features and isolated lakes, flow direction, names, stream level, and centerline representations for areal water bodies. Reaches are also defined to represent water bodies and the approximate shorelines of the Great Lakes, the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and the Gulf of Mexico. The NHD also incorporates the National Spatial Data Infrastructure framework criteria established by the Federal Geographic Data Committee. For data outside of Wyoming or most recent versions goto http://nhd.usgs.gov. in order to download the most up to date NHD data, go to USGS NHD Geodatabase at http://nhdgeo.usgs.gov/viewer.htm, where data can be extracted by polygon.
