This dataset represents the adjusted soil erodibility factor within individual local and accumulated upstream catchments for NHDPlusV2 Waterbodies based on the NRCS State Soil Geographic data.

        Catchment boundaries in LakeCat are defined in one of two ways, on-network or off-network. The on-network catchment boundaries follow the catchments provided in the NHDPlusV2 and the metrics for these lakes mirror metrics from StreamCat, but will substitute the COMID of the NHDWaterbody for that of the NHDFlowline. The off-network catchment framework uses the NHDPlusV2 flow direction rasters to define non-overlapping lake-catchment boundaries and then links them through an off-network flow table.

        The STATSGO Layer table specifies two soil erodibility factors for each component layer, KFFACT and KFACT. The STATSGO documentation describes KFFACT as a soil erodibility factor which "quantifies the susceptibility of soil particles to detachment and movement by water. This factor is used in the Universal Soil Loss Equation to calculate soil loss by water." KFACT is described as a soil erodibility factor which is "adjusted for the effect of rock fragments." The average value of each of these soil erodibility factors was determined for the top (surface) layer for each map unit of each state. The base-flow index (BFI) grid for the conterminous United States was developed to estimate (1) BFI values for ungaged streams, and (2) ground-water recharge throughout the conterminous United States. Estimates of BFI values at ungaged streams and BFI-based ground-water recharge estimates are useful for interpreting relations between land use and water quality in surface and ground water.

        The soil erodibility factor  was summarized by local catchment and by watershed to produce local catchment-level and watershed-level metrics as a continuous data type.