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A spatially explicit model of long-term mean annual streamflow for the conterminous United States

Published by U.S. Geological Survey | Department of the Interior | Metadata Last Checked: January 27, 2026 | Last Modified: 2020-11-17T00:00:00Z
The data release documents the development of a hybrid (statistical-mechanistic) SPARROW (SPAtially Referenced Regression On Watershed attributes) model of long-term mean annual streamflow applied to streams and rivers of conterminous United States. The model coupled previous catchment-scale (1-km) water balance predictions of “natural” unit-area runoff, which are inclusive of major water cycling processes, with additional explanatory variables (e.g., soils, vegetation, land use, topography, water losses in streams and reservoirs) that account for the effects of natural and cultural water supply and demand processes that operate over large spatial scales and explain streamflow variability across the conterminous United States river basins. The model performance was compared with that for six more simple models as described in the journal article. This USGS data release contains all of the input and output files for the execution of all of the models described in the journal article (see Table 1; https://doi.org/10.1029/2019WR025001). An R script is provided that allows users to execute the seven models.

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