Long-Term River Restoration Monitoring After Dam Removal in New Jersey, USA

9 years of seasonal monitoring data (2 years pre-, 2 years during, 5 years post-removal) on the Paulins Kill river in New Jersey, USA. The dataset, authored by Chloe F. Pearson and shared on figshare, includes continuous measurements of temperature, dissolved oxygen, and turbidity, along with macroinvertebrate sampling and migratory fish surveys to quantify the effects of the Columbia Dam removal.

Use Cases

• Modeling changes in water temperature and dissolved oxygen regimes based on long-term monitoring data.
• Assessing biological recovery using macroinvertebrate community scores as an indicator.
• Evaluating the return of migratory fish species like American eel and sea lamprey post-dam-removal.
• Applying differences-in-differences statistical approaches to quantify restoration effects.

Strengths

• Data spans 9 years, covering pre-, during, and post-removal stages of a dam removal project.
• Includes multiple physical (temperature, DO, turbidity) and biological (macroinvertebrates, fish) parameters for a multifaceted analysis.
• Specific quantitative results are reported, such as a relative temperature decrease of 0.29°C and DO increase of 0.14 mg/L.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• The data is contained in a 574.2 KB PDF file, which is a small and potentially unstructured format for analysis.

Provenance

Source

Chloe F. Pearson via figshare.

Collection Method

Seasonal continuous instream monitoring and biological sampling at sites upstream, downstream, and within the dam impoundment.

Time Range

Sampling spanned 9 years total, covering 2 years pre-, 2 years during, and 5 years post-dam removal.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-13 05:47:16; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Paulins Kill river, New Jersey, USA.