← Back to usersum index

Official RUSLE2 Climate and Erosivity Data

Vendored normalization of the canonical official RUSLE2 climate-database distribution and its companion polygon bundle.

See also: ../../specification.md for the R-mode contracts that distinguish official RUSLE2 planning datasets from cligen_static WEPP-aligned runtime erosivity.

Overview

This directory vendors the official RUSLE2 climate-database release published through the NRCS or Purdue-hosted RUSLE2 data site, converted into repository- native Parquet or GeoParquet artifacts for inspection, provenance, and future runtime or validation work.

These assets now back the implemented canonical_rusle2 r_mode in the RUSLE controller, with a v1 runtime scope limited to watershed-centroid selection against polygon-backed official links.

The official distribution is not packaged as modern analytics formats. It is published as:

• state or territory ZIP files containing legacy .gdb climate databases
• an official polygon shapefile bundle for climate zones

For local use in this repo, those sources were normalized into:

• one Parquet of official source-file inventory
• one Parquet of all extracted climate records
• one GeoParquet of the official polygon bundle with deterministic joins to the extracted climate records where an official or defensible REC_LINK exists

Files

Source Attribution

• Official RUSLE2 climate landing page: https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/resources/tech-tools/water-erosion-rusle2
• Official climate database index: https://fargo.nserl.purdue.edu/rusle2_dataweb/NRCS_Climate_Database.htm
• Official climate ZIP directory: https://fargo.nserl.purdue.edu/RUSLE2_ftp/Climate_data/
• Official polygon bundle: https://fargo.nserl.purdue.edu/RUSLE2_ftp/Climate_data/Climate%20Data%20Shp%20Files/climate%20data%20shp%20files.zip

The vendored Parquet or GeoParquet artifacts in this directory are derivative convenience products created for local runtime, inspection, and reproducible repository access.

Metadata

Source Inventory Parquet

• Rows: 54
• Coverage: official state or territory climate ZIP files present in the public RUSLE2 climate directory at extraction time
• Key columns:
  • zip_name, zip_url
  • gdb_name
  • record_count
  • status

Climate Records Parquet

• Rows: 10,319
• Unique non-null official_rec_link: 9,091
• Rows without polygon join: 41
• Coverage:
  • official climate records from the public RUSLE2 climate databases
  • includes CONUS, Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Pacific Basin, and Virgin Islands table records where present in the official databases
• Key columns:
  • record identity: state_name, local_area, record_name, record_name_decoded
  • join diagnostics: official_rec_link, official_rec_link_method, in_official_polygon_bundle
  • erosivity values: r_factor_english, r_equiv_english, r_monthly_jan through r_monthly_dec, r_monthly_sum
  • supporting climate fields: eros_density_*, precip_mm_*, temp_c_*
  • official metadata: climate_ei_choice, runoff_rainfall_choice, science_version

Climate Zones GeoParquet

• Rows: 32,932
• Unique polygon official_rec_link: 8,970
• Polygon rows with a matched climate record: 32,645
• Unique polygon official_rec_link values with a matched climate record: 8,803
• CRS: inherited from the official polygon shapefile (EPSG:4326)
• Key columns:
  • official polygon fields: OBJECTID, RUSLE_REQ, REC_LINK, Shape_Leng, Shape_Area
  • deterministic selected climate record: selected_record_name, selected_record_variant, selected_official_rec_link_method, r_factor_english, r_monthly_*, r_monthly_sum
  • duplicate diagnostics: matched_record_count, matched_record_variants, matched_record_names

Transformation Notes

The vendored artifacts apply these local normalization steps:

• extracted the official .gdb tables from the public ZIP distribution
• excluded one non-data placeholder row named default
• normalized text fields with HTML unescaping, accent folding, and a small alias map for known legacy or misspelled county names
• parsed both R and Req region labels into official polygon REC_LINK forms such as 10-11 or 16-18
• retained official R_MONTHLY when present
• derived monthly erosivity as PRECIP * EROS_DENSITY when R_MONTHLY was absent but the official monthly precipitation and erosivity-density fields were present
• converted the official polygon shapefile to GeoParquet
• joined one deterministic selected climate record per polygon REC_LINK with this preference order:
  • monthly data present
  • non-Req record preferred over Req
  • CLIMATE_EI_CHOICE_R_RATIO preferred over R_AND_EI_PTR
  • explicit region-labeled record preferred over plain county fallback

The GeoParquet also preserves duplicate diagnostics so the selected record is auditable when multiple official climate rows share the same REC_LINK.

Limitations

• 41 official climate-table rows remain table-only in the vendored Parquet:
  • 30 Montana YellowstonePark County rows
  • 10 Virgin Islands station rows
  • 1 Virginia City of Clifton Forge row
• The official polygon bundle is not a complete geometry companion for every climate record in the official tables.
• The climate-record Parquet therefore has broader official coverage than the polygon GeoParquet.
• The .gdb files in the official distribution are legacy SQLite 2.x databases, so reproducible regeneration requires compatible extraction tooling.
• Runtime v1 behavior intentionally rejects centroid selections that do not resolve to a polygon-backed official climate record; there is no silent fallback to table-only rows.

Developer Notes

• Use the repository .venv to read these artifacts with pandas, pyarrow, and geopandas.
• Prefer the climate-record Parquet when you need the full official table inventory, including table-only rows and non-CONUS records.
• Prefer the GeoParquet when you need the official polygon geometry plus one deterministic joined climate record per zone.
• Do not assume selected_record_name is the only official climate row for a polygon. Check matched_record_count and matched_record_names when join multiplicity matters.