Data Supporting Identification and Analysis of Gatekeeper Wetlands in the Lake Winnipeg Watershed

This repository contains files used in support of the identification of "gatekeeper" wetlands in the Lake Winnipeg Watershed and the analysis and results presented in the Nature Communications Earth & Environment article, “Gatekeeper wetlands govern nutrient pathways in a continental basin." Annual inundated (wetland) polygons 1984-2020 in the Lake Winnipeg Watershed are provided in the ArcGIS file geodatabase, “inundated_py.gdb;” see Fendereski et al., 2025 for details on the construction of the polygons (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jag.2025.104376). The polygon features have the following attributes: Gridcode = Unique ID for wetland Area_New = Wetland area in m2 Perimeter = Wetland perimeter in m Per_Area_Ratio = Wetland perimeter-to-area ratio "predictor_variables.xlsx” provides all variables used for time series analysis from 1984-2020. Each sheet represents summaries for the Lake Winnipeg Watershed per each stream order region. For more information, please refer to the “Read Me” sheet. “RF_Model_Inputs.xlsx” provides all variables used in Random Forest analyses presented in the Nature Communications Earth & Environment article from 1994-2020. Each sheet represents summaries for the Lake Winnipeg Watershed per each stream order region. For more information, please refer to the “Read Me” sheet. "RF_model_performance_statistics.xlsx" provides the median summarized performance metrics for the Random Forest models across 100 iterations. Each sheet represents the dependent variable of each model and each specific stream order. For more information, please refer to the “Read Me” sheet. "stream_order_connectivity.csv" provides the annual (1984-2020) ratio of inundated area connected to streams by the total inundated area in the Lake Winnipeg Watershed per each stream order. "stream_order_disconnectivity.csv" provides the annual (1994-2020) ratio of inundated area disconnected to streams by the total inundated area in the Lake Winnipeg Watershed per each stream order.