Data

Since its formation, the Colorado River Basin Salinity Control Forum and its partners have completed a substantial amount of work in an ongoing effort to reduce salinity concentrations and loads in the Colorado River. These efforts and related monitoring have generated a large volume of data and information. This data release includes geospatial datasets that provide information on...

Identifying long-term trends in water availability, including surface water quantity, is a key part of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Integrated Water Availability Assessments (IWAAs) mission. This data release includes input and output data used in Mann-Kendall trend analyses to characterize streamflow conditions at 124 USGS streamgages in the Upper Colorado River Basin for water...

The U.S. Geological Survey in cooperation with the Upper Arkansas Water Conservancy District, created a numerical groundwater-flow model for the Wet Mountain Valley alluvial aquifer using the finite-difference MODFLOW code with the Newton formulation solver. This numerical groundwater-flow model simulates water-budget components, groundwater and surface-water interactions, and evaluates...

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) installed and operated several flood and debris flow warning gages within or downstream from the Spring Creek burn scar, Colorado, U.S.A. The warning gages were operated during several years post fire (2019-21) in cooperation with the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT). The USGS warning gages were part of a larger post-wildfire...

Biogeochemical processes are key drivers of chemical solubility and mobilization. Understanding these processes will lead to improved predictive capabilities and may aid with watershed management decisions. This data release presents results from the Boulder Creek, Colorado watershed, including analyses of water and sediment. From April to August 2019, water samples were collected weekly...

The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with Colorado Springs Utilities, has been collecting topographic data annually since 2012 at 10 study areas along Fountain Creek, Colorado. The 10 study areas are located along Fountain Creek between Colorado Springs and the confluence of Fountain Creek and the Arkansas River in Pueblo. This data release presents topographic survey data, Light...

A synoptic sampling campaign was conducted on the Animas River near Silverton, Colorado, under low-flow conditions in September 2021. The sampling campaign was designed to quantify constituent loading and identify sources of contamination along a 3.8-kilometer study reach. The study reach began approximately 170 meters upstream of Arrastra Creek and extended downstream to U.S. Geological...

MODFLOW-6 with the Groundwater Flow (GWF) and Groundwater Transport (GWT) models was used to simulate the geohydrology of the aquifer system of the Paradox Valley in western Colorado. Salinity of the Colorado River is a major concern in both the United States and the Republic of Mexico. The Colorado River and its tributaries supply water for about 40 million people and irrigation of...

Acid mine drainage (AMD) can cause ecological harm throughout the state of Colorado, including in the Upper Animas River watershed near Silverton. In the Upper Animas River watershed, a technique that includes the emplacement of hydraulic bulkheads within draining mines has been used to remediate AMD. Data for major ions and trace metal concentrations, isotopic compositions, and...

After wildfires occurred in the western United States during 2020, in-stream water quality monitors and automatic samplers were deployed in four burned watersheds and one unburned watershed. In-stream water temperature, turbidity, and fluorescent dissolved organic matter (fDOM) were measured at high frequency, and the fDOM data were corrected for temperature and turbidity effects...

This data release includes data provided by Colorado Springs Utilities to the U.S. Geological Survey. Two types of data are included here. First are daily average effluent discharge rates from the Las Vegas Street Wastewater Treatment Facility and JD Phillips Water Resource Recovery Facility along with the sum of rates on dates with available data. Second are daily total volumes of...

Dissolved noble gas data were collected using a portable mass spectrometer mounted on inflatable rafts on the Colorado River near Glenwood Springs, Colorado and the Virgin River near La Verkin, Utah. Data were collected approximately every 3 to 10 minutes for a suite of noble gases including helium (He), neon (Ne), argon (Ar), krypton (Kr), and xenon (Xe). Patterns in observed dissolved...