The National Park Service initiated the Long-term Ecological Monitoring Program at Denali National Park and Preserve in 1992. The dataset likely contains time-series measurements of air quality, stream hydrology, soils, aquatic systems, vegetation, and wildlife, with a primary focus on the Rock Creek watershed. Data collection involved automated sensors and manual recording, with the last documented update in 1998.
Use Cases
- Analyzing long-term weather and climate trends based on hourly and daily sensor measurements.
- Modeling watershed-level ecological interactions based on monitored parameters like hydrology, soils, and vegetation.
- Studying the impact of climate variables on small mammal and avian communities in a headwater stream environment.
- Calibrating remote sensing data with ground-based weather and snowpack measurements.
Strengths
- Program initiated in 1992, providing a multi-year baseline for ecological study.
- Data collection methodology is described in detail, including sensor types (e.g., Campbell Scientific 21X dataloggers) and sampling intervals (e.g., 60-second measurements).
- Monitoring covers multiple interconnected ecological parameters including air, water, soil, and biology.
Limitations
- Last updated 1998-01-01 23:59:59.999000; freshness should be verified.
- Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
- Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
Provenance
- Source
- National Park Service Long-term Ecological Monitoring Program, accessed via nasa_earthdata.
- Collection Method
- Data collected via automated sensors (e.g., Campbell Scientific dataloggers, SumX SX445 datalogger) and manual recording at field stations in the Rock Creek drainage.
- Time Range
- Monitoring began in 1992; description references data up to 1998.
- Freshness
- Data collection described up to 1998; no more recent updates are indicated.
- Geography
- Primarily the Rock Creek drainage, a headwater stream in northeastern Denali National Park and Preserve, Alaska, USA.