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Submitted to: Society for Range Management Meeting Abstracts
Publication Type: Abstract Only Publication Acceptance Date: 2/12/2000 Publication Date: N/A Citation: N/A Interpretive Summary: Technical Abstract: Long-term landscape-scale research is fundamental to full understanding of hydrologic processes and dynamic relationships over broad spatial and temporal scales. The Northwest Watershed Research Center and Reynolds Creek Experimental Watershed were established in 1960, to conduct research addressing water supply, flooding and erosion in rangelands where seasonal snow and frozen soil conditions strongly influence hydrologic regime. The 234 km Reynolds Creek basin in the Owyhee Mountains 70 km south of Boise, Idaho, is an outdoor hydrologic laboratory reasonably representing mountainous rangelands of the interior Pacific Northwest, a landscape with high relief and diversity of geology, soils, aspect, vegetation and land use. The elevation range is 1098 m to 2254 m. Mean annual precipitation varies from 23 cm at the lowest elevations to over 110 cm at the headwaters, where over 75% of annual precipitation comes as snow. An intensive precipitation and streamflow measurement network includes 18 dual-gauge precipitation sites, five comprehensive climate stations, seven snow courses and nine stream gaging stations. In this fourth decade of research, hydrologic monitoring has been improved to embrace state-of-the art data acquisition, real-time telemetry, and relational data base archiving. Reynolds Creek Experimental Watershed is available to scientists and resource managers from private, university, state, and federal entities. The Northwest Watershed Research Center welcomes cooperation in research and application of results. |
