Halladale River Water Quality Parameters Before and After Afforestation (1995-2010)

1995-2010 water quality data from six sites on the Upper Halladale River in North Scotland, monitoring the effects of conifer afforestation. The dataset was collected by the Forestry Commission to assess the short, medium, and long-term impacts of forest planting and management on a sensitive salmon fishery. It includes a wide range of chemical and biological parameters from samples taken regularly over the study period.

Use Cases

• Modeling surface water acidification trends based on long-term chemical monitoring data.
• Assessing the efficacy of forest management practices in protecting freshwater environments based on pre- and post-planting water quality.
• Analyzing the impact of soil disturbance and hydrological changes from forestry operations on water chemistry.
• Studying the relationship between nutrient losses from fertilizer applications and freshwater biology in a peatland catchment.

Strengths

• Data spans 15 years (1995-2010), covering pre-planting, planting in 1996, and long-term monitoring phases.
• Monitoring from six sites provides spatial coverage within the sensitive Upper Halladale River catchment.
• Dataset is associated with specific research papers and a detailed attribution statement, providing context.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment for large-scale modeling.
• Data is stored in XLSX format, which may require conversion for programmatic analysis.

Provenance

Source

Forestry Commission (UK)

Collection Method

Regular water sampling and laboratory analysis from six sites.

Time Range

1995-2010

Freshness

Last updated 2026-06-29 22:12:54.017564; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Upper Halladale River, North Scotland