Physical and Chemical Data for Water in Lake Powell and from Glen Canyon Dam Releases, Utah-Arizona, 1964–2008

Summary

This report presents the physical and chemical data collected for Lake Powell water and Glen Canyon Dam releases and the data-collection methods used from 1964 through 2008. Data have been collected throughout this period by various offices of the Bureau of Reclamation and U.S. Geological Survey and are compiled to represent the existing body of chemical and physical information on Lake Powell and Glen Canyon Dam releases. From this record, further interpretation may be made concerning mixing processes in Lake Powell, the movement and fate of advective inflow currents, effects of climate and hydrological variations, and the effects of the operation and structure of Glen Canyon Dam on the quality of water in Lake Powell and from Glen Canyon Dam releases.

The data reported in this report are organized in separate tables of the WQDB (a nominal acronym for “water-quality database”). The WQDB is a Microsoft Access relational database, consisting of tables of similar information linked by common fields and was developed to store data and assist in organizing, analyzing, and interpreting this information. Individual data tables contain sampling site information, a catalog of site visits, ambient observations associated with a site visit, depth profiles of physicochemical parameters through the water column, and results of chemical analyses for water samples for major ionic and nutrient constituents.

The WQDB and associated data files are available at http://pubs.usgs.gov/ds/471/data/. These files contain the WQDB Microsoft Access database (WQDB.mbd), comma-separated-values (CSV) files of each of the eight database tables, and CSV files, representing the output of pre-defined sample queries, which combine data from select tables.

First posted October 22, 2009