Meteorological and hydrological data from the Alder Creek Watershed, Grand River Basin, Ontario.

The Alder Creek field observatory was instrumented by the Southern Ontario Water Consortium as the middle member of three watersheds with different degrees of urbanization. Field data were collected via the deployment of electronic instruments and manual measurements in the Alder Creek watershed to answer questions related to water management at the watershed scale. Field sites were chosen based on: 1) an attempt to distribute measurement locations spatially throughout the watershed, 2) permissions obtained from local residents, businesses, and stakeholders (e.g., the Regional Municipality of Waterloo) for installations, and 3) interest in monitoring local processes such as depression focused recharge. Cellular network telemetry was used to regularly transmit remote field data to a computer at the University of Waterloo. This was part of a “smart” watershed design whereby field data could be reviewed by technicians to make decisions regarding field monitoring and equipment maintenance. Data collection schedules could also be adjusted remotely. This datasets will be also used to support the research objectives of the Global Water Futures Program