Lake Powell is a large water storage reservoir in the arid southwestern United States. Here, we present a 58-yr limnology dataset that captures water quality parameters from reservoir filling to present day (temperature, salinity, major ions, total suspended solids), as well as a 38-yr record of Secchi depth, and a ~ 30-yr record of nutrients, phytoplankton, and zooplankton assemblages. The dataset includes 5208 unique site visits spanning 258 unique sites of which 9 have been consistently visited. It also spans the establishment of an invasive bivalve (Dreissena bugensis, i.e. Quagga mussel) which was first detected in 2012. Given the general lack of long-term data from lakes or reservoirs in arid regions, this dataset represents a unique contribution to regional, continental, and global-scale limnology studies. As the hot drought in the desert southwest continues, we expect this dataset will inform water management decision-making for this largest reservoir in the Upper Colorado River Basin.

Scientific Significance Statement:
This 58-yr water quality dataset spans the filling of a large reservoir in an arid ecoregion. The data are contained in a series of 8 flat files and are research ready, containing 5208 unique site visits, with long-term quarterly to monthly scale data from nine sites. Data include spatially explicit profile measurements of standard limnological variables as well as discrete measurements of Secchi depth, total suspended solids, and major ion and nutrient concentrations. It also contains surface phytoplankton and depth-integrated zooplankton tow assemblage data that represent 194 and 68 unique genera, respectively. The dataset can be used to investigate site-specific long-term water quality trends and has considerable value for informing broader scale limnology studies.

Deemer, Bridget R., Caitlin M. Andrews, Kristin E. Strock, Nicholas Voichick, James Hensleigh, John R. Beaver, and Robert Radtke. Over Half a Century Record of Limnology Data from Lake Powell, Desert Southwest United States: From Reservoir Filling to Present Day (1964-2021). Limnology and Oceanography Letters 8, no. 4 (2023): 580 -594. https://aslopubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/lol2.10310

© 2023 The Authors.
Limnology and Oceanography Letters published by Wiley Periodicals LLCon behalf of Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography. This article has been contributed to by U.S. Government employees and their work is in the public domain in the USA.

This is an Open Access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Kristin Strock is a professor of Environmental Studies at Dickinson College.

This published version is made available on Dickinson Scholar with the permission of the publisher. For more information on the published version, visit ASLO's (Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography) Website. https://aslopubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/lol2.10310

Citation

Thumbnail	Title	Date Uploaded	Visibility	Actions
	Strock.Over_Half.pdf	2023-02-17	Public	Download