Data Release for: A Web-Based Tool for Assessing the Condition of Benthic Diatom Assemblages in Streams and Rivers of the Conterminous United States

Benthic diatom assemblages are known to be indicative of water quality but have yet to be widely adopted in biological assessments in the United States due to several limitations. Our goal was to address some of these limitations by developing regional multi-metric indices (MMIs) that are robust to inter-laboratory taxonomic inconsistency, adjusted for natural covariates, and sensitive to a wide range of anthropogenic stressors. We aggregated bioassessment data from two national-scale federal programs and used a data-driven analysis in which all-possible combinations of 2-7 metrics were compared for three measures of performance. The datasets in this release support the Carlisle, et al. 2022 report cited herein. The article provides full details of data aggregation, model development, and application. Daren M. Carlisle, Sarah A. Spaulding, Meredith A. Tyree, Nicholas O. Schulte, Sylvia S. Lee, Richard M. Mitchell, Amina A. Pollard. 2022. A web-based tool for assessing the condition of benthic diatom assemblages in streams and rivers of the conterminous United States. Ecological Indicators Volume 135. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2021.108513.