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Hydrologic indicator statistics used to examine changes in streamflows associated with changing land use practices in Minnesota, 1945-2015

Metadata Updated: January 20, 2026

Hydrologic indicator statistics were computed for 82 selected surface water sites located throughout Minnesota using daily streamflow data from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) National Water Information System (NWIS). The 187 hydrologic indicator statistics were computed in RStudio version 3.5.0 using the EflowStats version 5.0.0 (Mills and Blodgett, 2017) and NWCCompare version 5.0 (Blodgett, 2017). The computed hydrologic indicator statistics encompass the five components of hydrologic conditions: magnitude, frequency, duration, timing, and rate of change. Magnitude is the amount of water moving past a fixed location in a given unit of time. Frequency refers to how often streamflows above a given magnitude recur over a specified time interval. Duration is the period of time associated with a specific streamflow condition. Timing refers to the regularity with which streamflows of a given magnitude occur, and rate of change refers to how quickly the magnitude of streamflow changes (Poff and others, 1997). Site selection was based on sites previously selected in three other studies evaluating long-term streamflow records for trends (Novatny and Stefan, 2007; Peterson, Nieber, and Kanivetsky, 2011; Ziegeweid et.al, 2015). Nontrend sites were shown to not have trends in streamflow that were not related to precipitation. Hydrologic indicator statistics were computed for two periods: 1) the pre-period from 10-1-1944 through 9-30-1979 and 2) the post-period from 10-1-1980 through 9-30-2015. Exact dates of the start of trends varied among sites, but 1980 was the selected cutoff period based on an approximation of the largest cluster and on other anecdotal evidence of changes in farming practices. Both categories also had at least 10 water years with complete streamflow data. Blodgett, D., 2017, NWCCompare: Returns NWC comparison stats for two daily data sets version 5.0, https://github.com/USGS-R/NWCCompare. Mills, J., and Blodgett, D., 2017, EflowStats: Hydrologic Indicator and Alterations Stats version 5.0.0, https://github.com/USGS-R/EflowStats. Novotny, E.V., and Stefan, H.G., 2007, Stream flow in Minnesota: Indicator of climate change, Journal of Hydrology 334: 319-333. Peterson, H.M., Nieber, J.L., and Kanivetsky, R., 2011, Hydrologic regionalization to assess anthropogenic changes, Journal of Hydrology 408: 212-225. Ziegeweid, J.R., Lorenz, D.L., Sanocki, C.A., and Czuba, C.R., 2015, Methods for estimating flow-duration curve and low-flow frequency statistics for ungaged locations on small streams in Minnesota: U.S. Geological Survey Scientific Investigations Report 2015–5170, 23 p., http://dx.doi.org/10.3133/sir20155170.

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: No license information was provided. If this work was prepared by an officer or employee of the United States government as part of that person's official duties it is considered a U.S. Government Work.

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Dates

Metadata Created Date January 11, 2026
Metadata Updated Date January 20, 2026

Metadata Source

Harvested from DOI USGS DCAT-US

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date January 11, 2026
Metadata Updated Date January 20, 2026
Publisher U.S. Geological Survey
Maintainer
Identifier http://datainventory.doi.gov/id/dataset/USGS_5b465724e4b060350a15c6d9
Data Last Modified 2020-08-27T00:00:00Z
Category geospatial
Public Access Level public
Bureau Code 010:12
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Metadata Catalog ID https://ddi.doi.gov/usgs-data.json
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Datagov Dedupe Retained 20260120063953
Harvest Object Id 9267aaf0-140d-4aa7-b26b-dd1e178df1ae
Harvest Source Id 2b80d118-ab3a-48ba-bd93-996bbacefac2
Harvest Source Title DOI USGS DCAT-US
Metadata Type geospatial
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Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash f84a698b040d76f526fe1ca737c7f9ddd134cccc791c28331a316f4a6edab0af
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