"The U.S. Geological Survey, Water Resources Division, Indiana District (USGS), in cooperation with the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), the Indiana Department of Environmental Management, and the Indiana Department of Natural Resources, Division of Water, has created a digital dataset of 14-digit hydrologic units (HU's) for the State of Indiana. The 14-digit HU's are subdivisions of the 8-digit Hydrologic-Unit Maps published by the U.S. Geological Survey Office of Water Data Coordination (Seaber, P.R., Kapinos, F.P., and Knapp, G.L., 1987, Hydrologic-unit maps: U.S. Geological Survey Water Supply Paper 2294, p. 1-13)."
"The purpose of this data set is to provide a large-scale digital database of 14-digit HU (subwatershed) boundaries for the State of Indiana. "
"The USGS maintains a set of 1:24,000 scale 7.5-minute paper topographic maps for the State of Indiana with hand-drawn drainage divides for streams with drainage areas greater than 5 square miles. These maps were prepared for the report 'Drainage areas of Indiana streams' (Hoggatt, R.E., 1975, Drainage areas of Indiana streams: U.S. Geological Survey, 231 p.). The USGS digitized these drainage divides, using ESRI ArcInfo Geographic Information System (GIS). The NRCS assigned each delineated drainage basin a 14-digit hydrologic-unit code (HUC). Drainage basins with the same 14-digit HUCs were merged to form the final data set of subwatersheds called in_hu14."
"The arcs that define each HU were digitized from hand-drawn drainage divides on 1:24,000-scale 7.5 minute topographic maps. Use of this geodataset at any scale larger than 1:24,000 is discouraged."
DATA DISCLAIMER This data set was compiled by Bernardin, Lochmueller and Associates, using data believed to be accurate; however, a degree of error is inherent in all data. This product is distributed "AS-IS" without warranties of any kind, either expressed or implied, including but not limited to warranties of suitability of a particular purpose or use. No attempt has been made in either the designed format or production of these data to define the limits or jurisdiction of any federal, state, or local government. These data are intended for use only at the published scale or smaller and are for reference purposes only. They are not to be construed as a legal document or survey instrument. A detailed on-the-ground survey and historical analysis of a single site may differ from this data. CREDIT USGS metadata requests - Acknowledgment of U.S. Department of Agriculture, Natural Resources Conservation Service, Indiana Department of Environmental Management, Indiana Department of Natural Resources-Division of Water would be appreciated in products derived from these data.
"This shapefile shows only the areas within the state of Indiana. Actual hydrologic units often extend beyond the state and county boundaries. All area attributes reflect only the portion of the hydrologic unit that lies within Indiana."
"All digitized lines fall within 0.025 inches of the source linework. The source linework had an average thickness of approximately 0.025 inches. The combined variation of about 0.05 inches at 1:24,000 scale constitutes a potential deviation of about 100 feet on the ground. The user is reminded that the source drainage-basin divides were interpreted from the topography represented on each 1:24,000 scale map."