Spatially referenced models of streamflow and nitrogen, phosphorus, and suspended-sediment loads in streams of the Pacific region of the United States

Wise, Daniel R.

doi:10.3133/sir20195112

Cited by 16 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…The SPARROW tool has been used for a variety of water-resources applications. SPAR-ROW models have been developed to quantify and improve the understanding of long-term mean annual nutrient and (or) sediment sources, fate, and transport in many areas of the United States [46,[51][52][53][56][57][58][59][60][61][62][63][64][65][66][67][68][69][70] and elsewhere [71][72][73][74]. SPARROW has also been used to model total dissolved solids [39,47] and total organic carbon [75].…”

Section: The Sparrow Modeling Toolmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of return flows on stream water quality and availability in the Upper Colorado, Delaware, and Illinois River Basins

Ator

Miller²,

Saad³

2022

PLOS Water

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Understanding effects of human water use and subsequent return flows on the availability and suitability of water for downstream uses is critical to efficient and effective watershed management. We compared spatially detailed estimates of stream chemistry within three watersheds in diverse settings to available standards to isolate effects of wastewater and irrigation return flows on the suitability of downstream waters for maintaining healthy aquatic ecosystems and for selected human uses. Mean-annual flow-weighted total and source-specific concentrations of nitrogen and phosphorus in individual stream reaches within the Upper Colorado, Delaware, and Illinois River Basins and of total dissolved solids within stream reaches of the Upper Colorado River Basin were estimated from previously calibrated regional watershed models. Estimated concentrations of both nitrogen and phosphorus in most stream reaches in all three watersheds (at least 78%, by length) exceed recommended standards for the protection of aquatic ecosystems, although concentrations in relatively few streams exceed such standards due to contributions from wastewater return flows, alone. Consequently, efforts to reduce wastewater nutrient effluent may provide important local downstream benefits but would likely have minimal impact on regional ecological conditions. Similarly, estimated mean-annual flow-weighted total dissolved solids concentrations in the Upper Colorado River Basin exceed standards for agricultural water use and (or) the secondary maximum contaminant level (SMCL) for drinking water in 52% of streams (by length), but rarely due to effects of irrigation return flows, alone. Dissolved solids in most tributaries of the Upper Colorado River are attributable primarily to natural sources.

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Section: The Sparrow Modeling Toolmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of return flows on stream water quality and availability in the Upper Colorado, Delaware, and Illinois River Basins

Ator

Miller²,

Saad³

2022

PLOS Water

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“…A subset of that larger dataset was selected to represent water bodies in the Pacific drainages that were not supporting their designated beneficial uses because of impairment related to eutrophication (based on the state 303[d] lists for 2012), which was consistent with the time frame represented by the watershed data used in this analysis. Nutrient conditions, as estimated by the USGS SPARROW models developed for the Pacific drainages for 2012 (Wise, 2019a), consisted of the mean annual total nitrogen and total phosphorus loads, yields, and flow-weighted concentrations and the contributions from individual anthropogenic and natural sources to the mean annual loads. Water-use conditions were represented by two indicators.…”

Section: Nutrient and Water-use Conditionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The USGS developed SPARROW models for the Pacific drainages for streamflow and three water-quality constituentstotal nitrogen, total phosphorus, and suspended sediment that represented 2012 conditions (Wise, 2019a). The analysis described in this report used either the original predictions from those models or the predictions resulting from minor modifications to the input data for those models.…”

Section: Spatially Referenced Regression On Watershed Attributes (Sparrow) Model Predictionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The predictions from the original nutrient models included the contribution from all land classified as "developed" under the 2011 National Land Cover Database (Homer and others, 2015), and this meant that the in-stream nutrient loads predicted by those models included the contribution from paved and unpaved roads. While this contribution was relatively small in urban areas, it was often incorrectly predicted to be the largest nutrient source in many undeveloped areas within the Pacific drainages (Wise, 2019a). To correct this problem, the input data were modified so that the contribution from developed land was limited to those areas located within delineated towns and cities.…”

Section: Spatially Referenced Regression On Watershed Attributes (Sparrow) Model Predictionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…). The climate varies widely across the modeling domain, with a humid continental climate in western Washington and Oregon, a semi-arid steppe climate in eastern Oregon and Washington and most of Idaho, a Mediterranean climate along most of the California coast and in the Central Valley, a desert climate in southern California, and an alpine climate in the Sierra Nevada in California, the Cascade Range in northern California, Washington, Oregon, and the Rocky Mountains in Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming.A detailed description of the Pacific drainages, including the extensive manipulation of the natural hydrology that occurs throughout the region, is included inWise (2019a).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Using regional watershed data to assess water-quality impairment in the Pacific Drainages of the United States

Wise¹

2021

Scientific Investigations Report

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Two datasets containing the first complete estimates of reach-scale nutrient, water use, dissolved oxygen, and pH conditions for the Pacific drainages of the United States were created to help inform water-quality management decisions in that region. The datasets were developed using easily obtainable watershed data, most of which have not been available until recently, and the techniques that were used provide a framework for integrating watershed data to assess waterquality impairment across other large hydrologic regions in the United States. These datasets were used to summarize regional nutrient and water-use conditions within impaired water bodies and to summarize regional dissolved oxygen concentrations and pH conditions for free-flowing stream reaches. Two examples are also presented that show how the datasets can be applied to specific water-quality management issues: (1) nutrient conditions in water bodies that have recently experienced problems with harmful algal blooms; and (2) dissolved oxygen and pH conditions in stream reaches likely to be populated by steelhead trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss irideus) during their summer run. The nutrient and water-use estimates could help inform actions aimed at managing water-quality conditions in impaired water bodies while the dissolved oxygen and pH predictions could be useful as screening tools to identify water bodies experiencing potential impairment.

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Combined effects of stream hydrology and land use on basin-scale hyporheic zone denitrification in the Columbia River Basin

Son

Fang

Gomez‐Velez

et al. 2022

Preprint

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Denitrification in the hyporheic zone (HZ) of river corridors is crucial to removing excess nitrogen in rivers from anthropogenic activities. However, previous modeling studies of the effectiveness of river corridors in removing excess nitrogen via denitrification were often limited to the reach-scale and low-order stream watersheds. We developed a basin-scale river corridor model for the Columbia River Basin with random forest models to identify the dominant factors associated with the spatial variation of HZ denitrification. Our modeling results suggest that the combined effects of hydrologic variability in reaches and substrate availability influenced by land use are associated with the spatial variability of modeled HZ denitrification at the basin scale. Hyporheic exchange flux can explain most of spatial variation of denitrification amounts in reaches of different sizes, while among the reaches affected by different land uses, the combination of hyporheic exchange flux and stream dissolved organic carbon (DOC) concentration can explain the denitrification differences. Also, we can generalize that the most influential watershed and channel variables controlling denitrification variation are channel morphology parameters (median grain size (D50), stream slope), climate (annual precipitation and evapotranspiration), and stream DOC-related parameters (percent of shrub area). The modeling framework in our study can serve as a valuable tool to identify the limiting factors in removing excess nitrogen pollution in large river basins where direct measurement is often infeasible.

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Spatially referenced models of streamflow and nitrogen, phosphorus, and suspended-sediment loads in streams of the Pacific region of the United States

Cited by 16 publications

References 12 publications

Effects of return flows on stream water quality and availability in the Upper Colorado, Delaware, and Illinois River Basins

Effects of return flows on stream water quality and availability in the Upper Colorado, Delaware, and Illinois River Basins

Using regional watershed data to assess water-quality impairment in the Pacific Drainages of the United States

Combined effects of stream hydrology and land use on basin-scale hyporheic zone denitrification in the Columbia River Basin

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