Data and code for: Degradation of floodplain integrity within the contiguous United States

Despite the numerous hydrological, geological, and ecological benefits
produced by floodplain landscapes, floodplains continue to be degraded by
human activities at a much higher rate than other landscape types. This
large-scale landscape modification has been widely recognized, yet a
comprehensive, national dataset quantifying the degree to which human
activities are responsible for this degradation has not previously been
evaluated. In this research, we analyze floodplain integrity for the
contiguous United States by spatially quantifying the impact of
anthropogenic stressors on almost 80,000 floodplain units. This dataset
demonstrates the prevalence of human modifications through widely
available geospatial datasets, which we use to quantify indicators of
floodplain integrity for five essential floodplain functions of flood
attenuation, groundwater storage, habitat provision, sediment regulation,
and organics and solute regulation. Our results show that floodplain
degradation is spatially heterogeneous and that the integrity of nearly
70% of floodplains in the United States is poor. We highlight that
quantifying the integrity of spatially explicit floodplain elements can
allow for restoration efforts to be targeted to the areas in most
desperate need of preservation.