Hudson River Estuary Lower Food Web Survey Data

Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies' Lower Food Web Survey provides data on water chemistry, physical characteristics, plankton, and zoobenthos for the tidal Hudson River. The data covers a 14-month period from February 2025 through March 2026. It is distributed as a 3.1 MB relational SQLite database under a CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

Use Cases

• Analyze temporal trends in water chemistry metrics like SRP (Soluble Reactive Phosphorus) from the CHEM table to assess nutrient pollution.
• Model relationships between physical characteristics (e.g., temperature, salinity) and plankton community composition from linked survey tables.
• Correlate zoobenthos abundance data with sediment chemistry variables to study benthic-pelagic coupling.
• Join station location data with biological and chemical tables to create geospatial maps of ecosystem health indicators.

Strengths

• Data underwent QAQC procedures as noted by the provider.
• Covers the entire tidal Hudson River spatial extent from Manhattan to Troy, NY.
• Relational structure allows for efficient querying of specific subsets via SQL.

Limitations

• Small dataset size of 3.1 MB suggests limited record count or feature breadth.
• As a relational database, it requires table join operations and SQL knowledge for most analyses, adding complexity.
• Provider notes errors may remain despite QAQC.

Provenance

Source

Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, author Christopher T. Solomon.

Collection Method

Field and lab surveys conducted as part of the Lower Food Web Survey.

Time Range

February 2025 to March 2026

Freshness

Data current through March 2026, last updated April 2026.

Geography

Tidal Hudson River Estuary, from Manhattan to Troy, New York, USA.