sweetapricity/bridgedeck-elevation

Bridgedeck — USGS Elevation at Bridge Locations (3DEP)

Part of the bridgedeck dataset collection for US bridge deck deterioration research.

⚠️ Pipeline dependency — This dataset contains pre-queried elevation values for all US bridge locations. It is shared to avoid re-running ~900k API calls. It is not a primary research dataset. See sweetapricity/bridgedeck-nbi for the main bridge dataset.

Overview

Elevation above sea level (metres, NAVD88) queried at each unique US bridge location from the USGS 3D Elevation Program (3DEP) via the Elevation Point Query Service (EPQS). Elevation is a proxy for several deterioration-relevant factors:

• High elevation → more freeze-thaw cycles, more snow/ice, more deicing salt use
• Low elevation → more flood exposure, higher humidity
• Coastal low elevation → marine chloride exposure

Source

Source: USGS 3D Elevation Program (3DEP) API: USGS Elevation Point Query Service — https://apps.nationalmap.gov/epqs/ Resolution: 1/3 arc-second (~10m), NAVD88 vertical datum Coverage: CONUS + AK + HI

Contents

File	Description
elevation_bridge_points.csv	Elevation (metres) at each unique bridge lat/lon

Schema

Column	Type	Description
bridge_id	str	{state_fips}_{county_fips}_{structure_number} — joins to NBI
latitude	float	Bridge latitude (WGS-84)
longitude	float	Bridge longitude (WGS-84)
elevation_m	float	Elevation above sea level (metres, NAVD88)

Features Derived

After running make etl-elevation, the following features are added to the panel:

Feature	Description
elevation_m	Elevation above sea level (metres)
elevation_class	Categorical: low (<100m), medium (100–500m), high (>500m)

How It's Used

The bridgedeck ETL script src/bridgedeck/etl/elevation_clean.py reads this CSV and produces data/interim/elevation/elevation_features.parquet — one row per bridge.

This file is provided pre-queried to avoid re-running 900k USGS API calls (15-20 min with 20 concurrent workers). Collaborators can use it directly by running make etl-elevation after downloading from HF.

Related Datasets

Repo	Type	Description
sweetapricity/bridgedeck-nbi	Primary	National Bridge Inventory — structural features
sweetapricity/bridgedeck-prism	Primary	PRISM climate features
sweetapricity/bridgedeck-noaa	Primary	NOAA storm event counts
sweetapricity/bridgedeck-nshm	Primary	USGS seismic hazard
sweetapricity/bridgedeck-salt	Primary	USGS road salt tiers
sweetapricity/bridgedeck-coastal	Dependency	Natural Earth coastline reference
sweetapricity/bridgedeck-elevation	Dependency	This dataset — USGS elevation at bridge locations