Sampled Sites for the U.S. Geological Survey Southeast Stream Quality Assessment

In 2015, the second of several Regional Stream Quality Assessments (RSQA) was done in the southeastern United States. The Southeast Stream Quality Assessment (SESQA) was a study by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) National Water Quality Assessment (NAWQA) project. One of the objectives of the RSQA, and thus the SESQA, is to characterize the relationships between water-quality stressors and stream ecology and subsequently determine the relative effects of these stressors on aquatic biota within the streams (Van Metre and Journey, 2014). To meet this objective, a framework of fundamental geospatial data was required to develop physical and anthropogenic characteristics of the study region, sampled sites and corresponding watersheds, and riparian zones. This dataset represents the 115 water-chemistry sites sampled for the SESQA, and is one of the four fundamental geospatial data layers that were developed for the Southeast study.

2015年，美国东南部完成了多轮区域河流质量评估（Regional Stream Quality Assessment, RSQA）中的第二次评估。东南河流质量评估（Southeast Stream Quality Assessment, SESQA）是美国地质调查局（U.S. Geological Survey, USGS）国家水质评估（National Water Quality Assessment, NAWQA）项目开展的一项研究。该评估（涵盖RSQA与SESQA）的核心目标之一，是刻画水质压力因子与河流生态系统间的关联关系，并进一步明确此类压力因子对河流内水生生物群落的相对影响（Van Metre与Journey, 2014）。为达成该目标，需构建一套基础地理空间数据框架，以解析研究区域、采样点位及对应流域与河岸带的物理特征与人为活动特征。本数据集对应SESQA研究中采样的115个水化学点位，是为该东南部研究构建的四项基础地理空间数据图层之一。