Uncultivated plant water use (riparian evapotranspiration) and consumptive use data for selected areas of the Little Colorado River watershed on the Navajo Nation, Arizona

These data were compiled to provide Fred Phillips Consultants with an estimate of river and stream vegetation (riparian) water use within the Little Colorado River (LCR) Watershed in Arizona, specifically providing an estimate of riparian plant area ET (mm/day and in mm/year) for actual remotely-sensed estimates of ETa and CU for at least one year of data (i.e., 2020). Objectives of our study were to measure five water metrics for the Little Colorado River watershed region on the Navajo Nation. These water metrics represent data including precipitation (P), potential evapotranspiration (ETo), actual evapotranspiration (ETa), net water requirement (WR) or the water difference (WD) between ETa and rainfall, and consumptive water use for a given riparian acreage (CU). These data were processed as 30m Landsat, using hdf format, and then .tif files were created for the location (study area) of riparian vegetation along the rivers and streams selected within the Little Colorado River watershed and dates from January 2014 through December 2020. These data were collected using digitized polygons for riparian shrubs and trees in ArcGIS by Fred Phillips Consultants and the water metric data was created in the University of Arizona, Vegetation Index and Phenology lab, using Landsat OLI imagery and Daymet weather data between 2014-2020. These data are useful to land and water managers across all levels of government, but these accurate and current estimates of riparian plant evapotranspiration and consumptive water use along the Little Colorado River tributaries and streams are especially valuable to the Navajo Nation, particularly for the adjudication of water rights.