Streamflow and water chemistry in cattle‐impacted watersheds of the southern Coastal Plain, USA

Abstract

As part of the long‐term hydrologic monitoring of the Little River Experimental Watershed (LREW) conducted by the United States Department of Agriculture—Agricultural Research Service Southeast Watershed Research Laboratory, precipitation, streamflow, and water chemistry data were collected from four areas of the LREW in southeast Georgia, from 2014 to 2020. Three of the sub‐watersheds are nested and characterized by the presence of cattle. Water chemistry measurements include total suspended solids; dissolved organic carbon and total dissolved nitrogen concentrations; dissolved nutrient species including nitrate + nitrite‐N, ammonia + ammonium‐N, orthophosphate‐P, and chloride; total and dissolved macro‐ and micronutrients including aluminum, arsenic, boron, calcium, cadmium, cobalt, chromium, copper, iron, potassium, magnesium, manganese, molybdenum, sodium, nickel, phosphorus, lead, sulfur, selenium, silicon, titanium, vanadium, and zinc; and dissolved organic matter optical characteristics. Daily streamflow data were paired with biweekly water sample analyte concentrations to calculate monthly analyte loads. Variability in the dataset was observed between the monitoring stations and seasonally within each station. While the dataset has some limitations including gaps in data collection and the lack of proper quality control documentation for 2014, this dataset can be useful to compare trends for various analytes across watersheds of different sizes and with different land cover configurations. The data presented in this article can be used to identify the impacts of land use on streamflow and water chemistry in small cattle‐impacted watersheds.