Long-Term Agroecosystem Research in the Central Mississippi River Basin: Goodwater Creek Experimental Watershed Weather Data

Knowledge of weather, particularly precipitation, is fundamental to interpreting watershed and hydrologic processes. The long-term weather record in the Goodwater Creek Experimental Watershed (GCEW) complements hydrologic and water quality data in the region. The GCEW also is the core of the Central Mississippi River Basin (CMRB) node of the Long-Term Agroecosystem Research network. Our objectives are to (i) describe the climatological context of the GCEW and CMRB settings, (ii) document instrumentation and the data collection, quality assurance, and reduction processes; (iii) provide examples of the data obtained and descriptive statistics; and (iv) document the availability of and access methods to obtain the data from the web-based data access portal at http://www.nrrig.mwa.ars. usda.gov/stewards/stewards.html. These objectives support an overall goal to make these long-term data available to the public for use in further analyses and modeling in support of research and public policy on watershed management.