Abstract
The U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Colorado East River Community Observatory (ER) in the Upper Colorado River Basin was established in 2015 as a representative mountainous, snow-dominated watershed to study hydrobiogeochemical responses to hydrological perturbations in headwater systems. The ER is characterized by steep elevation, geologic, hydrologic and vegetation gradients along floodplain, montane, subalpine, and alpine life zones, which makes it an ideal location for researchers to understand how different mountain subsystems contribute to overall watershed behaviour. The ER has both long-term and spatially-extensive observations and experimental campaigns carried out by the Watershed Function Scientific Focus Area (SFA), led by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and researchers from over 30 organizations who conduct cross-disciplinary process-based investigations and modelling of watershed behaviour. The heterogeneous data generated at the ER include hydrological, genomic, biogeochemical, climate, vegetation, geological, and remote sensing data, which combined with model inputs and outputs comprise a collection of datasets and value-added products within a mountainous watershed that span multiple spatiotemporal scales, compartments, and life zones. Within 5 years of collection, these datasets have revealed insights into numerous aspects of watershed function such as factors influencing snow accumulation and melt timing, water balance partitioning, and impacts of floodplain biogeochemistry and hillslope ecohydrology on riverine geochemical exports. Data generated by the SFA are managed and curated through its Data Management Framework. The SFA has an open data policy, and over 70 ER datasets are publicly available through relevant data repositories. A public interactive map of data collection sites run by the SFA is available to inform the broader community about SFA field activities. Here, we describe the ER and the SFA measurement network, present the public data collection generated by the SFA and partner institutions, and highlight the value of collecting multidisciplinary multiscale measurements in representative catchment observatories.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | e14243 |
| Journal | Hydrological Processes |
| Volume | 35 |
| Issue number | 6 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Jun 2021 |
Funding
This research is supported as part of the Watershed Function Scientific Focus Area funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Biological and Environmental Research under Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231. This research used resources of the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC) and the U.S. Department of Energy's Joint Genome Institute (JGI), which are U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science user facilities operated under Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231. Support to Subsurface Insights for development of some of the core abilities used here under awards DE-SC0009732 and DE-SC0018447 is gratefully acknowledged. We also acknowledge the members of the Watershed SFA community who provided information about their datasets for this paper, including Erica Woodburn, Max Berkelhammer, Rich Wanty, Curtis Beutler, Heidi Steltzer, Amanda Henderson, Brian Enquist, Baptiste Dafflon, Li Li, Qina Yan, Kamini Singha, Martin Briggs, Reed Maxwell, David Gochis, Anna Ryken, Bhavna Arora, Sebastian Uhlemann, Michael Wilkins, Amelia Nelson, Ulas Karaoz, Janice Brahney, Yuxin Wu, Dana Chadwick, Boris Faybishenko, John Christensen, Wendy Brown, Nick Bouskill, Pat Sorensen, Jiancong Chen, Jiamin Wan, James St. Clair, Savannah (Bryant) Scott, Matthew Winnick, Anna Chovanes, Xiaoqin Wu, Ate Visser, Mark Raleigh, Jeffrey Deems, Joel Rowland, Michelle Newcomer, and Mariah Carbone. This research is supported as part of the Watershed Function Scientific Focus Area funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Biological and Environmental Research under Contract No. DE‐AC02‐05CH11231. This research used resources of the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC) and the U.S. Department of Energy's Joint Genome Institute (JGI), which are U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science user facilities operated under Contract No. DE‐AC02‐05CH11231. Support to Subsurface Insights for development of some of the core abilities used here under awards DE‐SC0009732 and DE‐SC0018447 is gratefully acknowledged. We also acknowledge the members of the Watershed SFA community who provided information about their datasets for this paper, including Erica Woodburn, Max Berkelhammer, Rich Wanty, Curtis Beutler, Heidi Steltzer, Amanda Henderson, Brian Enquist, Baptiste Dafflon, Li Li, Qina Yan, Kamini Singha, Martin Briggs, Reed Maxwell, David Gochis, Anna Ryken, Bhavna Arora, Sebastian Uhlemann, Michael Wilkins, Amelia Nelson, Ulas Karaoz, Janice Brahney, Yuxin Wu, Dana Chadwick, Boris Faybishenko, John Christensen, Wendy Brown, Nick Bouskill, Pat Sorensen, Jiancong Chen, Jiamin Wan, James St. Clair, Savannah (Bryant) Scott, Matthew Winnick, Anna Chovanes, Xiaoqin Wu, Ate Visser, Mark Raleigh, Jeffrey Deems, Joel Rowland, Michelle Newcomer, and Mariah Carbone.
Keywords
- East River
- diverse watershed data
- hydrobiogeochemical processes
- mountainous watershed observatory
- watershed function SFA data
- watershed function science focus area