The Colorado East River Community Observatory Data Collection

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 behavior. The ER has both long-term and spatiallyextensive 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 modeling of watershed behavior. 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 five 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 seventy 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.

Sulfur Biogeochemical Cycling and Redox Dynamics in a Shale‐Dominated Mountainous Watershed

“…Solid‐phase samples for this study include shale, hillslope soils, and floodplain sediment and the sample locations are shown in Figure 1. GPS coordinates and SFA location IDs for all sampling sites can be found in the Table S1 in Supporting Information and in the SFA site locations data set (Varadharajan et al., 2020).…”