The USDA-ARS Southwest Watershed Research Center (SWRC) operates the Walnut Gulch Experimental Watershed (WGEW) in southeastern Arizona as an outdoor laboratory for studying semiarid rangeland hydrologic, ecosystem, climate, and erosion processes.
Since its establishment in 1953, the SWRC in Tucson, Arizona, has collected, processed, managed, and disseminated high-resolution, spatially distributed hydrologic data in support of the center’s mission. Data management at the SWRC has evolved through time in response to new computing, storage, and data access technologies. In 1996, the SWRC initiated a multiyear project to upgrade rainfall and runoff sensors and convert analog systems to digital electronic systems supported by data loggers. This conversion was coupled with radio telemetry to remotely transmit recorded data to a central computer, thus greatly reducing operational overhead by reducing labor, maintenance, and data processing time. A concurrent effort was initiated to improve access to SWRC data by creating a system based on a relational database supporting access to the data via the Internet. An SWRC team made up of scientists, IT specialists, programmers, hydrologic technicians, and instrumentation specialists was formed. This effort is termed the Southwest Watershed Research Center Data Access Project (DAP).
The goal of the SWRC DAP is to efficiently disseminate data to researchers; land owners, users, and managers; and to the public. Primary access to the data is provided through a Web-based user interface. In addition, data can be accessed directly from within the SWRC network. The first priority for the DAP was to assimilate and make available rainfall and runoff data collected from two instrumented field sites, the WGEW near Tombstone, Arizona, and the Santa Rita Experimental Range (SRER) south of Tucson, Arizona.
This web map describes the associated GIS layers.