USGS SPARROW Surface Water-Quality Modeling

SPARROW Surface Water-Quality Modeling

NAWQA Home Model Description Fact Sheet Decision Support System FAQs Documentation Software Publications Contacts Training Regional MRB Studies

SPARROW, a modeling tool for the regional interpretation of water-quality monitoring data. The model relates in-stream water-quality measurements to spatially referenced characteristics of watersheds, including contaminant sources and factors influencing terrestrial and aquatic transport. SPARROW empirically estimates the origin and fate of contaminants in river networks and quantifies uncertainties in model predictions.

Mississippi/Atchafalaya River Basins

Phosphorus Yield in the Mississippi River Basin

  SPARROW tracks nutrient delivery locally
  to the outlets of inland watersheds and
  regionally to coastal waters. Differences
  in the spatial patterns between the two
  maps illustrate the effects of phosphorus
  removal in streams and reservoirs on the
  quantities of phosphorus delivered locally
  to streams vs. those delivered regionally
  to the Gulf of Mexico from inland
  watersheds.[Read more about these
  and other SPARROW results]

RECENT ACTIVITIES

Sources, fate, and transport of nitrogen and phosphorus in the Chesapeake Bay watershed
Summary of the regional modeling results and enhanced modeling capabilities
Regional SPARROW model assessments for the United States
SPARROW Online Decision Support System
SPARROW Featured Collection in the Journal of the American Water Resources Association
A model of organic carbon in streams of United States
Sources of suspended sediment in streams of the Chesapeake Bay watershed

APPLICATIONS

The National Models

Organic carbon in U.S. streams
Suspended sediment in U.S. streams
Natural background concentrations of nutrients in U.S. streams
Atmospheric sources of nitrogen to estuaries of the United States
Sources of nutrients in the Nation's streams (model predictions for HUC watersheds)
Moving from Monitoring to Prediction: The Quality of the Nation's Streams
Studies of denitrification and nitrogen removal in streams

The Regional Models
Summary of the major results and enhanced modeling capabilities
Regional SPARROW model assessments for the United States
SPARROW Featured Collection in the Journal of the American Water Resources Association

Nutrients in the Mississippi River Basin
Phosphorus and nitrogen delivery to the Gulf of Mexico from the Mississippi River Basin
Rankings of watershed nutrient yields in the Mississippi/Atchafalaya River Basin
Effect of stream channel size on nitrogen delivery to the Gulf of Mexico
Nutrients in the Northeast
Regional total nitrogen and phosphorus models
The role of headwater streams in downstream water quality
New England SPARROW data viewer
New England Interstate Water Pollution Control Commission (NEIWPCC)
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Region 1 Project
Chesapeake Bay Watershed
Sources, fate, and transport of nitrogen and phosphorus in the Chesapeake Bay watershed
Sources of suspended sediment in streams
Application of the national nutrient models
A regional nitrogen model
Nutrient models for the late 1980s and the 1990s

Nutrients in the Southeast
Sources and transport of nitrogen and phosphorus in streams
A Bayesian SPARROW nitrogen model
Support of TMDL programs in North Carolina using SPARROW

Salinity in the Southwest
Sources and sinks of dissolved solids

SELECTED MODEL INPUT DATA

Hydrologic cataloging unit watersheds
River reaches of the conterminous U.S. - USGS Enhanced River Reach File:
version 2.0 (ERF1-2) version 1.2 (ERF1);
Stream water-quality measurements (on-line; CD-ROM)
Municipal and industrial point sources
Fertilizer use
Livestock nutrient wastes
Soil characteristics - State Soil Geographic Data (STATSGO)
Precipitation and air temperature

Accessibility FOIA Privacy Policies and Notices

U.S. Department of the Interior | U.S. Geological Survey
URL: http://water.usgs.gov/nawqa/sparrow/index.html
Page Contact Information: ralex@usgs.gov
Page Last Modified: Wed 2-Nov-2011 12:09 EST