AquaMatch Chlorophyll a Data from Water Quality Portal: ~1970-2024

This dataset, “AquaMatch Chlorophyll a Data from Water Quality Portal ~1970-2024”, is a component of a forthcoming update to AquaSat (Ross et al., 2019), AquaSat version 2 (“v2”). The overarching purpose of AquaSat V2 is to emphasize the individual parts of the AquaSat pipeline that make-up the matchups between satellite and in-situ measurements. As such, we have greatly expanded and improved upon the AquaSat chlorophyll a dataset in two ways: First, we have incorporated additional recent in situ data beyond what was available at the publication of AquaSat. Second, we have created a data quality tiering system to provide end-users with more guidance on data usage. In this schema we have three tiers: restrictive data that are verifiably self-similar across organizations and time-periods and can be considered highly reliable; narrowed data that we have good reason to believe are self-similar, but for which we can not verify full compatibility across data providers; and inclusive data, which are assumed to be reliable and are harmonized to our best ability given the information available from the data provider. We have also added flag columns to help users understand complexities of the available depth and field sampling data.

This dataset is a derived data product created using records downloaded from the Water Quality Portal (WQP) spanning January 6, 1970, to June 20, 2024. The WQP is a data warehouse for water-related data measured or observed within the United States and US Territories managed by the Environmental Protection Agency, United States Geological Survey, and the National Water Quality Monitoring Council. The dataset does not contain remote sensing matchups but can be paired with Landsat surface reflectances using the pipeline presented in Ross et al. (2019).

Ross, M. R. V., Topp, S. N., Appling, A. P., Yang, X., Kuhn, C., Butman, D. et al. (2019). AquaSat: A data set to enable remote sensing of water quality for inland waters. Water Resources Research, 55, 10012–10025. https://doi.org/10.1029/2019WR024883