Multispectral absorbance and fluorescence analysis of dissolved organic carbon in water samples taken from the Upper Clark Fork River (Montana, USA) during water year 2019 (1 Oct 2018 - 30 Sep 2019)

The Upper Clark Fork River (UCFR) Long Term Research in Environmental Biology (LTREB) umbrella monitoring project generating these data is conducted separately and complementarily to the 200-million-dollar (USD) superfund project for ecological restoration of the UCFR, associated tributaries, and head water streams including Silver Bow and Warm Springs Creeks. Restoration along the UCFR in western Montana includes removal of metal-laden floodplain soils, lowering of the floodplain to its original elevation, and re-vegetation of over 70 km of the river’s floodplain closest to contaminant sources. The UCFR LTREB project includes bi-weekly water quality monitoring across the first 200 km of the river and its major tributaries along a gradient of heavy metal contamination associated with historic mining. Monitoring includes inorganic phosphorus and nitrogen concentrations, biotic standing stocks, and dissolved and whole-water heavy metal concentrations. The monitoring program began in 2017 with funding likely to be extended through 2028. The original analytical intent for these data was to assess the response of river dissolved organic carbon to the floodplain restoration. Data are multispectral absorbance and fluorescence analyses of organic carbon dissolved in samples of well-mixed river thalweg water. Data include excitation-emission matrices, absorbance spectroscopy, as well as absorbance and fluorometric summary indices calculated at specific wavelengths of excitation and emission. Data are from the 2019 water year (1 Oct 2018 to 30 Sep 2019). Data were collected on the Upper Clark Fork River (USGS HUC 17010201) at 13 project sites distributed along the river from the vicinity of Anaconda to Missoula, Montana, USA.