PURPOSE AND SCOPE
RESSED is a Microsoft® Access ® database containing information from the original Soil Conservation Service (SCS) datasheets (SCS Form 34). The database is provided for download (i.e., this website does not contain tools for utilizing the RESSED database). The Subcommittee on Sedimentation hopes to provide updates to this database via periodic postings on this site. Such database improvements may be predicated on acquisition of adequate funding for RESSED.
Additionally, scanned copies of the original data sheets are available for selected viewing, downloading, or printing. The data sheets are in Adobe® Acrobat® Portable Document Format (PDF) (Adobe® Reader® is available at no cost from adobe.com for this purpose).
Reservoir locations are based on the best information available to-date and can be viewed and selected from the interactive map of the U.S. The Form 34 data sheets are physical scans of typewriter-prepared or handwritten pages that were published through the Subcommittee on Sedimentation since the early 1950s (pre-computer era). The actual data shown on the sheets are included in RESSED.
The primary purposes of the RESSED website are to:
- Provide access to bathymetric and topographic surveys for reservoirs in the RESSED database. The Subcommittee on Sedimentation has endeavored since the early 1990s to provide access to these data so that reservoir managers, natural resource planners, researchers, and others with interests in reservoir sedimentation can easily retrieve and analyze the data.
- Provide a portal for inputting existing reservoir sedimentation-survey data not already in RESSED, including uploading of newly acquired survey data.
- Solicit additional information related to any of the 1,800+ reservoirs in the RESSED database from reliable sources, with emphases on:
- Acquisition and verification of accurate location information for reservoirs and
- Adding bathymetric surveys for existing reservoirs into the database.
- Add reliable descriptive and bathymetric information for more U.S. reservoirs that are not among the original 1,800+ surveyed reservoirs in RESSED’s predecessor, the RESIS-II database. Information in this category may include:
- Reservoir sedimentation-survey data collected before 1994 but not in RESIS-II, and therefore not in RESSED.
- Survey data recorded since 1993, but not in RESSED
- Newly acquired survey data. Note that this site will eventually provide the capability to upload such data, with the proper data-quality assurances.
The RESSED database and this website are evolving, dynamic entities that will likely be subject to on-going changes.
