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    • Soil and surface water nitrogen and caffeine data from 2019, and 2019-2020 trail counts of hikers in Loch Vale Watershed, Rocky Mountain National Park

    Metadata Updated: July 6, 2024

    Daily visitor use in Rocky Mountain National Park has increased substantially since 2014, raising questions about the impact of human waste on water quality in popular areas without latrines. Human urine contributes nitrogen, and the ecological and biogeochemical effects of nitrogen from atmospheric deposition have long been the topic of study in Loch Vale watershed, Rocky Mountain National Park. Nitrogen from atmospheric deposition has been found previously to lead to lake eutrophication and altered algal species assemblages. Our data were collected to evaluate the impacts of visitors to a popular alpine watershed in Rocky Mountain National Park. There are three separate data files: soil sample locations and concentrations of nitrate, ammonium, and caffeine (used as a marker of human waste) for May-September 2019; surface water sample locations and concentrations of nitrate, ammonium, and caffeine (used as a marker of human waste) for May-September 2019; and trail count data for June-September 2019 and 2020. The study was conducted by USGS and Rocky Mountain National Park researchers and yielded results regarding the nitrogen input (which was calculated as 2% of total annual N inputs) and also revealed information on visitor behavior, namely that many visitors do not follow standard Leave No Trace guidelines for locating privy sites 200 feet or more from a water body.

    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 June 1, 2023
    Metadata Updated Date July 6, 2024

    Metadata Source

    Harvested from DOI EDI

    Other Data Resources

    Additional Metadata

    Resource Type Dataset
    Metadata Created Date June 1, 2023
    Metadata Updated Date July 6, 2024
    Publisher U.S. Geological Survey
    Maintainer
    @Id http://datainventory.doi.gov/id/dataset/0e0d41dc611d72c7bfada538fefe2e01
    Identifier USGS:6377ead0d34ed907bf6fd1b2
    Data Last Modified 20230222
    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://datainventory.doi.gov/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 6e400eaf-97de-4961-9a75-e57d08cadf3a
    Harvest Source Id 52bfcc16-6e15-478f-809a-b1bc76f1aeda
    Harvest Source Title DOI EDI
    Metadata Type geospatial
    Old Spatial -105.68336,40.27416,-105.64343,40.30791
    Publisher Hierarchy White House > U.S. Department of the Interior > U.S. Geological Survey
    Source Datajson Identifier True
    Source Hash 10f8a570b536f60bb0425f4abfce6759e452bac7a8d892d3c6705bf841ffceb4
    Source Schema Version 1.1
    Spatial {"type": "Polygon", "coordinates": -105.68336, 40.27416, -105.68336, 40.30791, -105.64343, 40.30791, -105.64343, 40.27416, -105.68336, 40.27416}

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