Working with several partners, including the Cleveland Metroparks and the Chagrin River Watershed Partners, the Cuyahoga County Planning Commission (CCPC) developed a predictive series of buffer areas - areas to be preserved for protection - around various types of water features highlighted in the map. The methods utilized are patterned on well-established modeling approaches and use a particular feature's drainage area to delineate its buffer or active stream area.The maps show buffered water areas, by feature, as determined by the CCPC:Lake Erie Shore: 300 feet bufferNavigable River (Cuyahoga): 300-foot bufferNavigable River (Chagrin, Rocky): 120-foot bufferStream Bank (Larger Watershed): 120-foot bufferStream Bank (Smaller Watershed): 75-foot bufferPonds, Lakes, Other Water bodies: 120-foot bufferWetland (National Wetland Inventory): 120-footWetland (Soil and Water Inventory): 120-footSmall Stream Centerline: 25 foot bufferWhen viewing these modeled buffer areas on the map, users can click within any given buffer area and "View Details" to see the reasoning behind that particular buffer area size.Note that these riparian buffers were generated only for above-ground water features and exclude culverted portions streams

This layer provides labels for above-ground water courses, and also shows dashed lines for underground water features know to the US Geologic Survey.
Two underground features depicted here are PIPELINE and ARTIFICIAL PATH. These are used to fill gaps in the NHD network to create a complete network.

By depicting these underground feataures together with our high-accuracy above-ground streams, we get a more complete view of our drainage networks.