Title:

Modeled historical streamflow metrics for the contiguous United States and National Forest Lands

Author(s):

Luce, Charles H.; Lute, Abigail C.; Kormos, Patrick; Livneh, Ben

Publication Year:

2017

How to Cite:

These data were collected using funding from the U.S. Government and can be used without additional permissions or fees. If you use these data in a publication, presentation, or other research product please use the following citation:

Luce, Charles H.; Lute, Abigail C.; Kormos, Patrick; Livneh, Ben. 2017. Modeled historical streamflow metrics for the contiguous United States and National Forest Lands. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2017-0046

Abstract:

Available water supply varies greatly across the United States depending on topography, climate, elevation and geology. Forested and mountainous locations, such as national forests, tend to receive more precipitation than adjacent non-forested or low-lying areas. However, contributions of national forest lands to regional streamflow volumes is largely unknown. Using outputs from the Variable Infiltration Capacity hydrologic model, we calculated mean annual and mean summer (July and August) streamflow metrics based on total flow and flow from national forest lands for each 1:100,000 scale National Hydrography Dataset stream reach in the contiguous United States. Specifically, this data publication contains twenty-one comma-delimited ASCII text files (for different drainage areas and processing units across the United States) containing 1915-2011 mean annual flow and mean summer flow. These files also contain the mean annual and mean summer flows from National forest system (NFS) lands as well as the portion of total mean annual flow contributed by flow from NFS lands. These data provide insight into 1915-2011 hydrologic regimes and national forest contributions to total water yield and can be joined to a National Hydrography Dataset stream layer for spatial illustrations and studies.

Keywords:

streamflow; National Forest; water supply; water yield; variable infiltration capacity (VIC); climatologyMeteorologyAtmosphere; inlandWaters; environment; Ecology, Ecosystems, & Environment; Hydrology, watersheds, sedimentation; Natural Resource Management & Use; Water; United States; National Forests

Related publications:

• Luce, Charles H.; Wenger, Seth J.; Lute, Abigail C. Unpublished material. Western U.S. stream flow metrics: A dataset of modeled flow metrics for streams in major river basins of the Western US for historical and future climate change scenarios. https://www.fs.fed.us/rm/boise/AWAE/projects/modeled_stream_flow_metrics.shtml
• Luce, Charles H.; Lute, Abigail C. Unpublished material. National forest contributions to streamflow. Maps available January 2016. https://wwwapps.fs.usda.gov/rmrs/projects/national-forest-contributions-streamflow
• Livneh, Ben; Rosenberg, Eric A. ; Lin, Chiyu; Nijssen, Bart; Mishra, Vimal; Andreadis, Kostas, M.; Maurer, Edwin P.; Lettenmaier, Dennis P. 2013. A long-term hydrologically based dataset of land surface fluxes and states for the conterminous United States: Update and Extensions. American Meteorological Society. 26(3). https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-12-0508.1 ftp://ftp.hydro.washington.edu/pub/blivneh/CONUS/Fluxes.asc.v.1.2.1915.2011.bz2/

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