Stormwater Action Monitoring (SAM) is a collaborative monitoring program between western Washington municipal stormwater permittees, state and federal agencies. SAM’s role is to use the results of regional monitoring and focused studies to inform policy decisions and identify effective strategies to improve stormwater management in the Puget Sound region. The SAM program includes status and trends monitoring of water quality, stream biota (macroinvertebrates, algae), and stream habitat to measure whether conditions are getting better or worse and identify patterns in healthy and impaired Puget Lowland streams. To meet this objective, a framework of fundamental geospatial data was required to develop physical and anthropogenic characteristics of the study region, sampled sites and corresponding watersheds, and riparian zones. This dataset comprises of 116 selected environmental characteristics for the 105 sites sampled for the SAM small stream study, and is one of the four fundamental geospatial data layers that were developed for this study. In addition, riparian zone boundaries for 16 reference sites in the Puget lowlands sampled by the Washington State Department of Ecology’s Ambient Biological Monitoring program from 2010 to 2015 were also digitized for this analysis to provide a regional context for the SAM study. In total, environmental characteristics for 121 total sites are provided in this data release.

Stormwater Action Monitoring (SAM) is a collaborative monitoring program between western Washington municipal stormwater permittees, state and federal agencies. SAM’s role is to use the results of regional monitoring and focused studies to inform policy decisions and identify effective strategies to improve stormwater management in the Puget Sound region. The SAM program includes status and trends monitoring of water quality, stream biota (macroinvertebrates, algae), and stream habitat to measure whether conditions are getting better or worse and identify patterns in healthy and impaired Puget Lowland streams. To meet this objective, a framework of fundamental geospatial data was required to develop physical and anthropogenic characteristics of the study region, sampled sites and corresponding watersheds, and riparian zones. This dataset comprises of 116 selected environmental characteristics for the 105 sites sampled for the SAM small stream study, and is one of the four fundamental geospatial data layers that were developed for this study. In addition, riparian zone boundaries for 16 reference sites in the Puget lowlands sampled by the Washington State Department of Ecology’s Ambient Biological Monitoring program from 2010 to 2015 were also digitized for this analysis to provide a regional context for the SAM study. In total, environmental characteristics for 121 total sites are provided in this data release.

Stormwater Action Monitoring (SAM) is a collaborative monitoring program between western Washington municipal stormwater permittees, state and federal agencies. SAM’s role is to use the results of regional monitoring and focused studies to inform policy decisions and identify effective strategies to improve stormwater management in the Puget Sound region. The SAM program includes status and trends monitoring of water quality, stream biota (macroinvertebrates, algae), and stream habitat to measure whether conditions are getting better or worse and identify patterns in healthy and impaired Puget Lowland streams. To meet this objective, a framework of fundamental geospatial data was required to develop physical and anthropogenic characteristics of the study region, sampled sites and corresponding watersheds, and riparian zones. The riparian-zone boundaries were created from stream centerlines digitized from imagery (hereinafter the "digitized riparian reach") that were buffered by 50 meters on each side of the stream centerline. The length of the digitized riparian reach was calculated as the distance in kilometers equal to the base-10 logarithm of the geospatially-derived watershed area, in kilometers squared (Johnson and Zelt, 2005). This dataset represents the riparian zone boundaries from 105 sites sampled for the SAM small stream study, and is one of the four fundamental geospatial data layers that were developed for this study. In addition, riparian zone boundaries for 16 reference sites in the Puget lowlands sampled by the Washington State Department of Ecology’s Ambient Biological Monitoring program from 2010 to 2015 were also digitized for this analysis to provide a regional context for the SAM study. In total, riparian zone boundaries for 121 total sites are provided in this data release.

This dataset contains climate, road salt application, physical, and land cover characteristics summarized for watersheds upstream of 93 USGS stream gages. Data were summarized by watershed using geographic information system software. The dataset consists of one comma-separated variable table.

This dataset contains climate, road salt application, physical, and land cover characteristics summarized for watersheds upstream of 93 USGS stream gages. Data were summarized by watershed using geographic information system software. The dataset consists of one comma-separated variable table.

This product consists of 29 datasets of tabular data and associated metadata for watershed characteristics of 1,530 study sites of the Surface Water Trends (SWT) project of the U.S. Geological Survey’s (USGS) National Water Quality Program (NWQP). The project is conducting national studies of trends in water quality of streams and rivers for periods ranging from 10 to 40 years, between 1972 and 2012. The data here include both static and time-series characteristics. Static data include primarily physical characteristics which have changed little over this period, such as geology, soils, and topography. Time-series data represent characteristics which may or may not have changed over time, such as land use, agricultural practices, precipitation, hydrologic modifications, atmospheric deposition, and population changes.

This product consists of 29 datasets of tabular data and associated metadata for watershed characteristics of 1,530 study sites of the Surface Water Trends (SWT) project of the U.S. Geological Survey’s (USGS) National Water Quality Program (NWQP). The project is conducting national studies of trends in water quality of streams and rivers for periods ranging from 10 to 40 years, between 1972 and 2012. The data here include both static and time-series characteristics. Static data include primarily physical characteristics which have changed little over this period, such as geology, soils, and topography. Time-series data represent characteristics which may or may not have changed over time, such as land use, agricultural practices, precipitation, hydrologic modifications, atmospheric deposition, and population changes.

In 2013, the first of several Regional Stream Quality Assessments (RSQA) was done in the Midwest United States. The Midwest Stream Quality Assessment (MSQA) was a collaborative study by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) National Water Quality Assessment (NAWQA), the USGS Columbia Environmental Research Center, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) National Rivers and Streams Assessment (NRSA). One of the objectives of the RSQA, and thus the MSQA, is to characterize the relationships between water-quality stressors and stream ecology and to determine the relative effects of these stressors on aquatic biota within the streams (U.S. Geological Survey, 2012a). To meet this objective, a framework of fundamental geospatial data was required to develop physical and anthropogenic characteristics of the study region, sampled sites and corresponding watersheds, and sampled ecological reaches. This dataset comprises of 139 selected environmental characteristics for the 100 sites sampled for the Midwest study.

In 2013, the first of several Regional Stream Quality Assessments (RSQA) was done in the Midwest United States. The Midwest Stream Quality Assessment (MSQA) was a collaborative study by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) National Water Quality Assessment (NAWQA), the USGS Columbia Environmental Research Center, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) National Rivers and Streams Assessment (NRSA). One of the objectives of the RSQA, and thus the MSQA, is to characterize the relationships between water-quality stressors and stream ecology and to determine the relative effects of these stressors on aquatic biota within the streams (U.S. Geological Survey, 2012a). To meet this objective, a framework of fundamental geospatial data was required to develop physical and anthropogenic characteristics of the study region, sampled sites and corresponding watersheds, and sampled ecological reaches. This dataset comprises of 139 selected environmental characteristics for the 100 sites sampled for the Midwest study.

This data release contains the watershed ancillary data that were used as input for a set of dynamic Spatially Referenced Regression On Watershed attributes (SPARROW) models for watersheds draining to Puget Sound and the Strait of Juan de Fuca, Washington for the years 2005 - 2020. The SPARROW models were used to estimate mean seasonal total nitrogen and total phosphorous conditions and the delivery of those nutrients to Puget Sound and the Strait of Juan de Fuca. The data sets in each child item, which consists of a collection of CSV files, represents landscape conditions in the incremental catchments that made up the hydrologic network used in the SPARROW modeling. The conditions for catchments that were partially or fully outside the domain of the original landscape data were estimated by extrapolating the conditions from nearby catchments.