Big Data
A newly published paper outlines significant enhancements to the CAMELS (Catchment Attributes and Meteorology for Large-sample Studies) dataset, with the introduction of CAMELS-Chem. This addition of detailed stream water chemistry data to the foundational CAMELS dataset is a major development in catchment science. It significantly increases the dataset's utility for analyzing water quality and ecosystem health, providing critical insights into water system dynamics and environmental responses.
The authors of the paper detail CAMELS-Chem as a combination of attribute data for 516 catchments with atmospheric deposition data from the National Atmospheric Deposition Program and water chemistry and instantaneous discharge data from the US Geological Survey, spanning from 1980 to 2018.
Including 18 stream water chemistry constituents like Aluminum, Calcium, Chloride, and various carbon and nitrogen forms, CAMELS-Chem enriches the existing dataset. It also covers annual deposition loads and concentrations of several elements. The authors emphasize that "CAMELS-Chem water chemistry data are sampled across different climates, seasons, and discharges, suitable for trend analysis and studying stream constituents for process understanding."
The enhancement of CAMELS with water chemistry data opens up new avenues for research in environmental science, hydrology, and ecology. It allows for more detailed studies in areas such as trend analysis, understanding biogeochemical processes, and hypothesis generation.
CAMELS-Chem, now available to the scientific community, provides a more comprehensive tool for examining and managing environmental processes.
Read and download CAMELS-Chem: augmenting CAMELS (Catchment Attributes and Meteorology for Large-sample Studies) with atmospheric and stream water chemistry data