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Title: Upper Washita River Experimental Watersheds: Reservoir, Groundwater, and Stream Flow Data

Author
item Moriasi, Daniel
item Starks, Patrick
item Guzman Jaimes, Jorge
item Garbrecht, Jurgen
item Steiner, Jean
item STONER, CHRIS - Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS, USDA)
item ALLEN, PAUL - Retired ARS Employee
item NANEY, JAMES - Retired ARS Employee

Submitted to: Journal of Environmental Quality
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 1/15/2014
Publication Date: 7/14/2014
Citation: Moriasi, D.N., Starks, P.J., Guzman Jaimes, J.A., Garbrecht, J.D., Steiner, J.L., Stoner, C.J., Allen, P.B., Naney, J.W. 2014. Upper Washita River experimental watersheds: Reservoir, groundwater, and stream flow data. Journal of Environmental Quality. 43:1262-1272.

Interpretive Summary: Water quantity and quality data are critical to the development of hydrologic and water quality models and various hydrologic applications. Whereas a lot of these data have been collected by USDA ARS and other agencies for a long time, a detailed description of available historical and current datasets is lacking. This paper describes hydrologic data available in the Little Washita River Experimental Watershed (LWREW) of the Southern Great Plains Research Watershed (SGPRW) and Fort Cobb Reservoir Experimental Watershed (FCREW), both located in southwest Oklahoma. Specifically, this paper describes the flood retarding structures and corresponding stage, discharge, seepage, and consumptive use data, stream gauges and groundwater wells and their corresponding streamflow and groundwater levels data, respectively. Data collection is a collaborative effort between USGS, OWRB, NRCS and ARS. Stage, discharge, seepage, and consumptive use data for the Fort Cobb Reservoir are available from the Bureau of Reclamation and cover a period of 1959 to present. There are 15 stream gauges in the LWREW and six in the FCREW with varying data records. There were 479 observation wells with data in the SGPRW and 80 in the LWREW, with the latest records collected in 1992. In addition, groundwater level data is available from 5 real-time monitoring wells and 34 historical wells within the FCREW. These datasets have been used for several research applications described in this paper. Plans for detailed groundwater data collection are underway to calibrate and validate the linked soil and water assessment tool (SWAT)-MODFLOW model. Also, plans are underway to conduct reservoir bathymetric surveys to determine the current reservoir capacity as affected by management of overland soil erosion landuse/land and stream channels.

Technical Abstract: Surface and groundwater quantity and quality data are essential in many hydrologic applications and to the development of hydrologic and water quality simulation models. The goal of this paper was to describe hydrologic data available in the Little Washita River Experimental Watershed (LWREW) of the Southern Great Plains Research Watershed (SGPRW) and Fort Cobb Reservoir Experimental Watershed (FCREW), both located in southwest Oklahoma. Specifically, this paper describes the flood retarding structures and corresponding stage, discharge, seepage, and consumptive use data, stream gauges and groundwater wells and their corresponding streamflow and groundwater levels data, respectively. Data collection is a collaborative effort between USGS, OWRB, NRCS and ARS. Stage, discharge, seepage, and consumptive use data for the Fort Cobb Reservoir are available from the Bureau of Reclamation and cover a period of 1959 to present. There are 15 stream gauges in the LWREW and six in the FCREW with varying data records. There were 479 observation wells with data in the SGPRW and 80 in the LWREW, with the latest records collected in 1992. In addition, groundwater level data is available from 5 real-time monitoring wells and 34 historical wells within the FCREW. These datasets have been used for several research applications. Plans for detailed groundwater data collection are underway to calibrate and validate the linked soil and water assessment tool (SWAT)-MODFLOW model. Also, plans are underway to conduct reservoir bathymetric surveys to determine the current reservoir capacity as affected by management of overland soil erosion landuse/land and stream channels.