As part of the U.S. Geological Survey’s Groundwater Resources Program study of the Appalachian Plateaus aquifers, estimates of annual water-budget components were determined at 849 continuous-record streamflow gaging stations from Mississippi to New York. Base flow, which can serve as a proxy for annual recharge, streamflow, and runoff were estimated from computer programs—PART (Rutledge, 1993), HYSEP (Sloto and Crouse, 1996), and BFI (Wahl and Wahl, 1988)—that are included in the hydrograph analysis component provided with version 1.0 of the U.S. Geological Survey Groundwater Toolbox. Only complete years (January to December) of record at each gage were used to determine annual estimates. Estimates of base-flow index, which is the percentage of streamflow from base flow, are included in the annual and average tables. Precipitation was estimated by calculating the average of cell values in the PRISM dataset intercepted by basin boundaries where previously defined in the GAGES-II dataset (Falcone, 2011). Estimates of evapotranspiration were then calculated from the difference between precipitation and streamflow.

As part of the U.S. Geological Survey’s Groundwater Resources Program study of the Appalachian Plateaus aquifers, estimates of annual water-budget components were determined at 849 continuous-record streamflow gaging stations from Mississippi to New York. Base flow, which can serve as a proxy for annual recharge, streamflow, and runoff were estimated from computer programs—PART (Rutledge, 1993), HYSEP (Sloto and Crouse, 1996), and BFI (Wahl and Wahl, 1988)—that are included in the hydrograph analysis component provided with version 1.0 of the U.S. Geological Survey Groundwater Toolbox. Only complete years (January to December) of record at each gage were used to determine annual estimates. Estimates of base-flow index, which is the percentage of streamflow from base flow, are included in the annual and average tables. Precipitation was estimated by calculating the average of cell values in the PRISM dataset intercepted by basin boundaries where previously defined in the GAGES-II dataset (Falcone, 2011). Estimates of evapotranspiration were then calculated from the difference between precipitation and streamflow.

As part of the U.S. Geological Survey’s Groundwater Resources Program study of the Appalachian Plateaus aquifers, estimates of annual water-budget components were determined at 849 continuous-record streamflow gaging stations from Mississippi to New York. Base flow, which can serve as a proxy for annual recharge, streamflow, and runoff were estimated from computer programs—PART (Rutledge, 1993), HYSEP (Sloto and Crouse, 1996), and BFI (Wahl and Wahl, 1988)—that are included in the hydrograph analysis component provided with version 1.0 of the U.S. Geological Survey Groundwater Toolbox. Only complete years (January to December) of record at each gage were used to determine annual estimates. Estimates of base-flow index, which is the percentage of streamflow from base flow, are included in the annual and average tables. Precipitation was estimated by calculating the average of cell values in the PRISM dataset intercepted by basin boundaries where previously defined in the GAGES-II dataset (Falcone, 2011). Estimates of evapotranspiration were then calculated from the difference between precipitation and streamflow.

As part of the U.S. Geological Survey Groundwater Resources Program study of Appalachian Plateaus aquifers, mean-annual and mean-seasonal water-budget estimates for the period 1980 through 2011 were determined for a 162,000 square-mile area covering parts of New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky, Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi. Mean-annual and mean-seasonal precipitation, recharge, and actual evapotranspiration (ET) estimates were derived from annual and monthly Soil-Water-Balance (SWB) model (McCoy and others, 2015; Westenbroek and others, 2010) output and compiled in a geodatabase. Precipitation estimates from the Appalachian Plateaus SWB model were derived from daily Daymet climate grids (Thornton and others, 2012). Estimates of recharge from the SWB model were calculated using a modified Thornthwaite-Mather soil-water accounting method (Thornthwaite and Mather, 1957; Westenbroek and others, 2010). Estimates of ET from the SWB model were derived by adjusting a spatially-variable estimate of potential ET (Hargreaves and Samani, 1985) with estimates of precipitation and soil-moisture (Westenbrok and others, 2010). The geodatabase contains polygon and point feature classes representing the model grid cells and their centers, respectively, and two tables containing mean-annual and mean-seasonal estimates for each cell. Mean-annual estimates were computed for full calendar years (January through December) and are presented in inches per year (in/yr) for the 1980 through 2011 period. Mean-seasonal estimates for spring (March through May), summer (June through August) and fall (September through November) are presented in inches for the 1980 through 2011 period. Mean-seasonal estimates for winter (December through February), also presented in inches, were calculated for December 1980 through February 2011.

As part of the U.S. Geological Survey’s Groundwater Resources Program study of the Appalachian Plateaus aquifers, estimates of annual water-budget components were determined at 849 continuous-record streamflow gaging stations from Mississippi to New York. Base flow, which can serve as a proxy for annual recharge, streamflow, and runoff were estimated from computer programs—PART (Rutledge, 1993), HYSEP (Sloto and Crouse, 1996), and BFI (Wahl and Wahl, 1988)—that are included in the hydrograph analysis component provided with version 1.0 of the U.S. Geological Survey Groundwater Toolbox. Only complete years (January to December) of record at each gage were used to determine annual estimates. Estimates of base-flow index, which is the percentage of streamflow from base flow, are included in the annual and average tables. Precipitation was estimated by calculating the average of cell values in the PRISM dataset intercepted by basin boundaries where previously defined in the GAGES-II dataset (Falcone, 2011). Estimates of evapotranspiration were then calculated from the difference between precipitation and streamflow.

As part of the U.S. Geological Survey’s Groundwater Resources Program study of the Appalachian Plateaus aquifers, estimates of annual water-budget components were determined at 849 continuous-record streamflow gaging stations from Mississippi to New York. Base flow, which can serve as a proxy for annual recharge, streamflow, and runoff were estimated from computer programs—PART (Rutledge, 1993), HYSEP (Sloto and Crouse, 1996), and BFI (Wahl and Wahl, 1988)—that are included in the hydrograph analysis component provided with version 1.0 of the U.S. Geological Survey Groundwater Toolbox. Only complete years (January to December) of record at each gage were used to determine annual estimates. Estimates of base-flow index, which is the percentage of streamflow from base flow, are included in the annual and average tables. Precipitation was estimated by calculating the average of cell values in the PRISM dataset intercepted by basin boundaries where previously defined in the GAGES-II dataset (Falcone, 2011). Estimates of evapotranspiration were then calculated from the difference between precipitation and streamflow.

Data used to estimate monthly water budgets at Panola Mountain Research Watershed, Panola Mountain State Park, Stockbridge, Ga. for water years 1986–2015. Data include: (1) hourly air temperature and solar radiation data used to calculate potential evapotranspiration using the Priestly-Taylor equation; (2) unit-value streamwater stage and streamflow; (3) unit-value base flow determined from a hydrography separation using the Eckhardt filter, (4) daily water budgets components, and; (5) edit code descriptions for streamwater stage and precipitation data for items 2 and 4.

Data used to estimate monthly water budgets at Panola Mountain Research Watershed, Panola Mountain State Park, Stockbridge, Ga. for water years 1986–2015. Data include: (1) hourly air temperature and solar radiation data used to calculate potential evapotranspiration using the Priestly-Taylor equation; (2) unit-value streamwater stage and streamflow; (3) unit-value base flow determined from a hydrography separation using the Eckhardt filter, (4) daily water budgets components, and; (5) edit code descriptions for streamwater stage and precipitation data for items 2 and 4.

This dataset provides numerical and categorical descriptions of 48 basin characteristics for 956 basins with observed streamflow information at U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) streamflow-gaging stations. Characteristics are indexed by National Hydrography Dataset (NHD) version 2 COMID (integer that uniquely identifies each feature in the NHD) and USGS station number for streamflow-gaging station. The variables represent mutable and immutable basin characteristics and are organized by characteristic type: physical (5), hydrologic (6), categorical (12), climate (6), landscape alteration (7), and land cover (12). Mutable characteristics such as climate, land cover, and landscape alteration variables are reported in decadal increments (for example, average percent forest for the decade 1950-1959, 1960-1969, etc). The majority of basin characteristics in this dataset were calculated using divergence-routing methods and are often referred to as “network-accumulated”. This method uses a modified routing database to navigate the NHDPlus reach network to aggregate (accumulate) the values derived from the reach catchment scale (Schwarz, G.E., and Wieczorek, M.E., 2018, Database of modified routing for NHDPlus version 2.1 flowlines: ENHDPlusV2_us: U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P9PA63SM ). In four instances, values are also provided for the entire catchment above a site and area designated using the “CAT_” prefix.

This dataset provides numerical and categorical descriptions of 48 basin characteristics for 956 basins with observed streamflow information at U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) streamflow-gaging stations. Characteristics are indexed by National Hydrography Dataset (NHD) version 2 COMID (integer that uniquely identifies each feature in the NHD) and USGS station number for streamflow-gaging station. The variables represent mutable and immutable basin characteristics and are organized by characteristic type: physical (5), hydrologic (6), categorical (12), climate (6), landscape alteration (7), and land cover (12). Mutable characteristics such as climate, land cover, and landscape alteration variables are reported in decadal increments (for example, average percent forest for the decade 1950-1959, 1960-1969, etc). The majority of basin characteristics in this dataset were calculated using divergence-routing methods and are often referred to as “network-accumulated”. This method uses a modified routing database to navigate the NHDPlus reach network to aggregate (accumulate) the values derived from the reach catchment scale (Schwarz, G.E., and Wieczorek, M.E., 2018, Database of modified routing for NHDPlus version 2.1 flowlines: ENHDPlusV2_us: U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P9PA63SM ). In four instances, values are also provided for the entire catchment above a site and area designated using the “CAT_” prefix.