Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Skip to content

Data from: Trends and sensitivities of low streamflow extremes to discharge timing and magnitude in Pacific Northwest mountain streams

Metadata Updated: April 21, 2025

Path analyses of historical streamflow data from the Pacific Northwest indicate that the precipitation amount has been the dominant control on the magnitude of low streamflow extremes compared to the air temperature‐affected timing of snowmelt runoff. The relative sensitivities of low streamflow to precipitation and temperature changes have important implications for adaptation planning because global circulation models produce relatively robust estimates of air temperature changes but have large uncertainties in projected precipitation amounts in the Pacific Northwest U.S. Quantile regression analyses indicate that low streamflow extremes from the majority of catchments in this study have declined from 1948 to 2013, which may significantly affect terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, and water resource management. Trends in the 25th percentile of mean annual streamflow have declined and the center of timing has occurred earlier. We quantify the relative influences of total precipitation and air temperature on the annual low streamflow extremes from 42 stream gauges using mean annual streamflow as a proxy for precipitation amount effects and streamflow center of timing as a proxy for temperature effects on low flow metrics, including 7q10 summer (the minimum 7 day flow during summer with a 10 year return period), mean August, mean September, mean summer, 7q10 winter, and mean winter flow metrics. These methods have the benefit of using only readily available streamflow data, which makes our results robust against systematic errors in high elevation distributed precipitation data. Winter low flow metrics are weakly tied to both mean annual streamflow and center of timing. Resources in this dataset:Resource Title: Supporting Information: Figure S1; Table S1 - Download docx. File Name: downloadSupplement, url: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/action/downloadSupplement?doi=10.1002/2015WR018125&file=wrcr22104-sup-0001-2015WR018125-s01.doc Figure S1. Net effect from mean annual streamflow and center of timing on low flow metrics at each gauge. Table S1. Basins with significant basin area classified as irrigation in USGS water year summaries (ie http://waterdata.usgs.gov/wa/nwis/wys_rpt/?site_no=14113000).

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: Creative Commons Attribution

Downloads & Resources

Dates

Metadata Created Date March 30, 2024
Metadata Updated Date April 21, 2025

Metadata Source

Harvested from USDA JSON

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date March 30, 2024
Metadata Updated Date April 21, 2025
Publisher Agricultural Research Service
Maintainer
Identifier 10.1002/2015WR018125
Data Last Modified 2024-02-13
Public Access Level public
Bureau Code 005:18
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Harvest Object Id ef7e9883-4a14-4273-abab-c0b4031196c9
Harvest Source Id d3fafa34-0cb9-48f1-ab1d-5b5fdc783806
Harvest Source Title USDA JSON
License https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Old Spatial {"type": "Polygon", "coordinates": -123.02215576172, 48.894518236158, -103.86199951172, 48.952268302185, -104.03778076172, 44.934668567935, -111.42059326172, 45.121021859875, -111.06903076172, 44.622731540795, -111.06903076172, 41.870583462267, -124.51629638672, 41.935998088668, -124.69207763672, 48.196302825623, -123.11004638672, 48.137683143855, -123.02215576172, 48.662849897351, -123.02215576172, 48.894518236158}
Program Code 005:040
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash bb2b379390be50010fc260e409edb4153b18b79e4800afb2a6fdc75db6b1211f
Source Schema Version 1.1
Spatial {"type": "Polygon", "coordinates": -123.02215576172, 48.894518236158, -103.86199951172, 48.952268302185, -104.03778076172, 44.934668567935, -111.42059326172, 45.121021859875, -111.06903076172, 44.622731540795, -111.06903076172, 41.870583462267, -124.51629638672, 41.935998088668, -124.69207763672, 48.196302825623, -123.11004638672, 48.137683143855, -123.02215576172, 48.662849897351, -123.02215576172, 48.894518236158}
Temporal 1948-01-01/2013-12-31

Didn't find what you're looking for? Suggest a dataset here.