UMIS NAWQA

• • UMIS Home
  • What is New?
  • Study Unit Description
  • Project Description
  • Data
  • Publications
  • Maps
  • Related Links

USGS IN YOUR STATE

USGS Water Science Centers are located in each state.

Snowmelt Synoptic Study: Design and Objectives

A synoptic sampling of streams in the study area was conducted in spring 1997 to characterize instantaneous concentrations and yields of nutrients and suspended sediment in streams during the rising limb of the snowmelt hydrograph. Secondary objectives included comparing concentrations and yields between streams draining different land uses and surficial geology, and comparing proportions of total nitrogen, total phosphorus, and suspended sediment loads contributed during snowmelt to proportions contributed annually.

Nutrients and suspended sediment can adversely affect surface-water quality by contributing to eutrophication and sedimentation. Previous studies have found that concentrations of nutrients, such as nitrate, can be at or near maximum annual concentrations in snowmelt runoff.

Several other agencies have sampled selected streams during all parts of the year, but little information existed to enable a comparison of nutrients and suspended sediment concentrations in snowmelt runoff in tributaries to the Mississippi, Minnesota, and St. Croix Rivers. Nutrient and suspended sediment data obtained provide information about a large number of tributaries in the study unit and greater spatial resolution about the distribution of nutrients and suspended sediment in stream water than is available from data collected at fixed sites.

Forty-one stream sites were selected in the Mississippi River Basin between Royalton and Lake Pepin with drainage areas from 10 to 46,800 sq mi. Sites were classified by their predominant land use and surficial geology. Percentages of land use (forest, wetlands, agriculture, or urban) and surficial geology (relatively poorly- drained, unstratified glacial tills or well-drained, stratified glacial outwash and alluvium) were estimated for each site. Streams draining the smallest basins accounted for combinations of land use and surficial geology that did not exist at larger scales, such as urban or forested areas in outwash deposits.

Publications:

Fallon, J.D., and McNellis, R.P., 2000, Nutrients and suspended sediment in snowmelt runoff from part of the Upper Mississippi River Basin, Minnesota and Wisconsin, 1997: U.S. Geological Survey Water-Resources Investigations Report 00-4165, 23 p.

Stark, J.R, Fallon, J.D., Fong, A.L., Goldstein, R.M., Hanson, P.E., Kroening, S.E., and Lee, K.E., 1999, Water-quality assessment of part of the Upper Mississippi River Basin, Minnesota and Wisconsin--Design and implementation of water-quality studies, 1995-98: U.S. Geological Survey Water-Resources Investigations Report 99-4135, 85 p.

Stark, J.R., Hanson, P. E., Goldstein, R.M., Fallon, J.D., Fong, A.L., Lee, K.E., Kroening, S.E., and Andrews, W.J., 2001, Water quality in the Upper Mississippi River Basin, Minnesota and Wisconsin, South Dakota, Iowa, and North Dakota, 1995-98: U.S. Geological Survey Summary Circular 1211, 35 p.