Vegetation Data from Selected Reaches Along the Rio Grande-Bravo, Texas: 2022 - 2024

These provisional data are vegetation plots for long-term monitoring of the Rio Grande-Rio Bravo within Big Bend National Park and the Rio Grande Wild and Scenic River. The National Park Service’s Chihuahuan Desert Network collects data to understand how the river responds to natural and human-induced changes in streamflow. Specifically, these data aim to evaluate: 1) indicators of channel simplification; 2) trends in geomorphic processes as reflected in channel and floodplain form; and 3) changes in narrowing in response to regulated and unregulated flows. Complimentary data investigate streamflow and related changes in channel morphology. These shifts may lead to channel simplification through vegetation encroachment, stabilization of formerly active channel deposits, and the creation of new floodplain surfaces due to lateral and vertical deposition of alluvial sediments. Since 2022, the Chihuahuan Desert Network conducts annual surveys at nine reaches along the Rio Grande River. Data collection is adapted from the Northern Colorado Plateau Network’s (NCPN) big rivers monitoring protocol (Perkins et al. 2018). At each site, we survey vegetation plots arranged along multiple stream channel cross-sections / transects.