The rate at which new information about stream resources is being created has accelerated with the recent development of spatial stream-network models (SSNMs), the growing availability of stream databases, and ongoing advances in geospatial science and computational efficiency. To further enhance information development, the National Stream Internet (NSI) project was developed as a means of providing a consistent, flexible analytical infrastructure that can be applied with many types of stream data anywhere in the country. A key part of that infrastructure is the NSI network, a digital GIS layer which has a specific topological structure that was designed to work effectively with SSNMs. The NSI network was derived from the National Hydrography Dataset Plus, Version 2 (NHDPlusV2) following technical procedures that ensure compatibility with SSNMs. This report describes those procedures and additional steps that are required to prepare datasets for use with SSNMs.
