Model predictions of biological condition metrics for small streams in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed, USA from 1985 to 2023

This data release contains predictions of stream biological condition as defined by the Chesapeake basin-wide index of biotic integrity for stream macroinvertebrates (Chessie BIBI) as well as prediction of the percentage of the benthic macroinvertebrate assemblage as 1) Ephemeroptera, Plecoptera, Trichoptera less Hydropsychidae, 2) Ephemeroptera, and 3) Clingers using Random Forest machine learning models with landscape data for small streams (≤ 200 km2 in upstream drainage) as defined by the National Hydrography Dataset Plus High Resolution across the Chesapeake Bay Watershed (CBW). Predictions were made for each year from 1985 to 2023 according to changes in landcover using the National Land Cover Database (NLCD) and climate from the Daymet 1km Monthly Climate Summaries Version 4 R1 . The Chessie BIBI data used were provided by the Interstate Commission on the Potomac River Basin. Uncertainty was calculated using model prediction intervals. For complete data descriptions and data interpretation see associated publication (Maloney et al., 2022).