MacroSheds: A synthesis of long‐term biogeochemical, hydroclimatic, and geospatial data from small watershed ecosystem studies

Abstract

Abstract The US Federal Government supports hundreds of watershed monitoring efforts from which solute fluxes can be calculated. Although instrumentation and methods vary between studies, the data collected and their motivating questions are remarkably similar. Nevertheless, little effort toward their compilation has previously been made. The MacroSheds project has developed a future‐friendly system for harmonizing daily time series of streamflow, precipitation, and solute chemistry from 169+ watersheds, and supplementing each with watershed attributes. Here, we describe the breadth of MacroSheds data, and detail the steps involved in rendering each data product. We provide recommendations for usage and discuss when other datasets might be more suitable. The MacroSheds dataset is an unprecedented resource for watershed science, and for hydrology, as a small‐watershed supplement to existing collections of streamflow predictors, like CAMELS and GAGES‐II. The MacroSheds platform includes a web dashboard for visualization and an R package for data access and analysis.