Prospect Hill Hydrological Stations at Harvard Forest since 2005

To better understand the critical role of headwater streams and wetlands in our forest ecosystem, long-term measurements were initiated in 2005 on two small watersheds in the Prospect Hill Tract of the Harvard Forest. On Nelson Brook, weirs were installed on outlet streams of an 11-ha spruce-hemlock wetland (watershed area = 44 ha). On Arthur Brook (formerly Bigelow Brook), pipes were installed to measure flow above (watershed = 24 ha) and below (watershed = 65 ha) a 3-ha shrub-dominated beaver swamp. The gaged watersheds, though adjacent and comparable in size, differ significantly in topography, soils, wetlands, stream chemistry, stream biota, land-use history, and forest vegetation, and provide an extraordinary opportunity to study the impacts of these factors on small watershed hydrology and ecology. Weekly manual measurements were initiated in April 2005. Continuous automated measurements were initiated at the stream gages in December 2007 and at the wetland gages in October 2008. Data for the current month are available online, updated every 15 minutes, with out-of-range values replaced by NA but values not otherwise checked. Earlier data are checked and archived monthly with missing, questionable, and estimated values flagged, following methods of the LTER ClimbDB project. A log of events affecting station measurements is also posted. For current data, please see: https://harvardforest.fas.harvard.edu/met-hydro-stations.