Water-quality and stream-habitat metrics calculated for the National Water-Quality Assessment Program's Regional Stream Quality Assessment conducted in the southeast United States in support of ecological and habitat stressor models, 2014

This data release includes metrics from the Regional Stream Quality Assessment (RSQA) from the Southeast Region for habitat stressors related to water-quality and habitat substrate. The goals of RSQA are to characterize multiple water-quality factors that are stressors to aquatic life -- contaminants, nutrients, sediment, and streamflow alteration -- and to develop a better understanding of the relation of these stressors to ecological conditions in streams throughout the region. In order to characterize water-quality variables and stream-habitat measurements as an aggregation of multiple measurements over a sampling period, and in support of ecological stressor modelling, metrics (summary statistics or indices) were computed from individual results by site using consistent methods over a consistent time frame. Water-quality metrics are based on discrete samples as well as long-term deployed passive samplers.