Sustaining the Earth's Watersheds-Agricultural Research Data System: Data development, user interaction, and operations management

Abstract

To support the USDA Agricultural Research Service Conservation Effects Assessment Project, a publicly available Web-based watershed data system, named Sustaining the Earth's Watersheds-Agricultural Research Data System (STEWARDS), was developed to provide data search, viewing, and downloading capabilities. The objectives of this paper are to (1) describe the data within STEWARDS, (2) describe the process of accessing watershed data and (3) provide an overview of the system management. STEWARDS is a data delivery system with a geographic information system interface, using space, time, and topic as key fields for searching an extensive database of soil, water, climate, land management, and socio-economic data from multiple long-term research watersheds. STEWARDS facilitates (1) researchers in obtaining USDA Agricultural Research Service historic watershed data for hydrological studies; (2) modelers in retrieving measured data over extensive time periods for model calibration and validation in watershed assessments to support CEAP; and (3) watershed managers, partners, and stakeholders in accessing long term data to support decision-making for selecting effective conservation practices.