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Title: Preface to special section on Fifty Years of Research and Data Collection: U.S. Department of Agriculture Walnut Gulch Experimental Watershed 1930

Author
item Moran, Mary
item Emmerich, William
item Goodrich, David - Dave
item Heilman, Philip - Phil
item Holifield Collins, Chandra
item Keefer, Timothy
item Nearing, Mark
item Nichols, Mary
item RENARD, K. - RETIRED ARS
item Scott, Russell - Russ
item Smith, John
item Stone, Jeffry
item Unkrich, Carl
item Wong, Jason

Submitted to: Water Resources Research
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 8/18/2007
Publication Date: 5/20/2008
Citation: Moran, M.S., Emmerich, W.E., Goodrich, D.C., Heilman, P., Holifield Collins, C.D., Keefer, T.O., Nearing, M.A., Nichols, M.H., Renard, K.G., Scott, R.L., Smith, J.R., Stone, J.J., Unkrich, C.L., Wong, J.K. 2008. Preface to special section on Fifty Years of Research and Data Collection: U.S. Department of Agriculture Walnut Gulch Experimental Watershed. Water Resources Research, Vol. 44, W05S01, doi:10.1029/2007WR006083.

Interpretive Summary: To understand the complex water balance of semiarid regions, it is necessary to have long-term information on soils, vegetation, hydrology, and climate at a given location. Such data have been collected for decades as part of interdisciplinary experiments at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Walnut Gulch Experimental Watershed (WGEW) operated by the USDA Agricultural Research Service (ARS) Southwest Watershed Research Center (SWRC) in southeast Arizona USA. In association with the 50th anniversary of the establishment of WGEW, SWRC scientists provided web-based access to continuous measurements of precipitation, runoff, sediment, meteorological, soil moisture, vegetation, CO2 and water flux, and geographic information system (GIS) data (http://www.tucson.ars.ag.gov/dap/) and published the most recent research results in one journal issue. In this issue, there are over 20 manuscripts providing WGEW history, metadata, data access and recent results of WGEW data analysis. The goal of these publications and the associated web site is to encourage cooperative studies of semiarid ecohydrology on WGEW.

Technical Abstract: This Special Section of Water Resources Research and the associated web site (http://www.tucson.ars.ag.gov/dap/) describe 50 years of data collection and the most recent research results at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Agricultural Research Service (ARS) Walnut Gulch Experimental Watershed (WGEW) in southeast Arizona. The goal of this compilation is to encourage cooperative, interdisciplinary studies of semiarid ecohydrology at WGEW based on continuing long-term measurements of soils, vegetation, hydrology and climate.