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Hydrologic, water-quality, fire, forest-cover, and other data, the Great Dismal Swamp, Virginia and North Carolina

Metadata Updated: November 12, 2025

The Great Dismal Swamp (the swamp) is a forested peatland in southeastern Virginia and northeastern North Carolina. Since early colonial times, timber harvesting and drainage through a network of ditches constructed to facilitate the harvesting have altered these ecosystems. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has managed the swamp as the Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge since 1974 to restore its forest communities to those present in early colonial times. Part of the approach to forest restoration has been to "restore the hydrology." The report by Speiran and Wurster (2020) describes the hydrology and water quality across the swamp. Part of the data used to describe the hydrology and water quality of the Great Dismal Swamp are not available through other publicly accessible databases. These data are derived from three sources: (1) water-quality data collected at 90 sites throughout the swamp by the U.S. Geological Survey and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as part of a one-time synoptic survey on March 15-31, 2016, (2) water-level, flow, and forest-cover data collected across the swamp by the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service since 2009, and (3) data collected by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers since 1940 on levels of Lake Drummond and flow from the Feeder Ditch and the Dismal Swamp Canal at Deep Creek, Va., and South Mills, N.C. The water-quality data were used to help identify and verify sources of water to the swamp. Forest-cover data provide a reference for comparison with forest cover in the early 1970s and the future. The remaining data are hydrologic information within and around the swamp. Reference: Speiran, G.K., and Wurster, F.C., 2020, Hydrology and water quality of the Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge, Virginia and North Carolina, and implications for hydrologic-management goals and strategies: U.S. Geological Survey Scientific Investigations Report, 2020-XXXX, xx p.

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: No license information was provided. If this work was prepared by an officer or employee of the United States government as part of that person's official duties it is considered a U.S. Government Work.

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Dates

Metadata Created Date September 12, 2025
Metadata Updated Date November 12, 2025

Metadata Source

Harvested from DOI USGS DCAT-US

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date September 12, 2025
Metadata Updated Date November 12, 2025
Publisher U.S. Geological Survey
Maintainer
Identifier http://datainventory.doi.gov/id/dataset/usgs-5dcd70c1e4b069579760af01
Data Last Modified 2020-08-27T00:00:00Z
Category geospatial
Public Access Level public
Bureau Code 010:12
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Metadata Catalog ID https://ddi.doi.gov/usgs-data.json
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 2da729df-1f8d-4117-985f-aa9ee790a26a
Harvest Source Id 2b80d118-ab3a-48ba-bd93-996bbacefac2
Harvest Source Title DOI USGS DCAT-US
Metadata Type geospatial
Old Spatial -76.5775, 36.4306, -76.3358, 36.7719
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash d427281f6a166e704388f972d0a3a6e9b63eb558476a794cd260442c043bbe5d
Source Schema Version 1.1
Spatial {"type": "Polygon", "coordinates": -76.5775, 36.4306, -76.5775, 36.7719, -76.3358, 36.7719, -76.3358, 36.4306, -76.5775, 36.4306}

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