Hydrological and Water Chemistry Data: Faribault County, Minnesota, County Ditches 62 and 30, 2018—2023

This dataset includes drainage discharge, water chemistry, and precipitation data and GIS shapefiles for research conducted on 249-ha County Ditch 62 (CD62) and adjacent 268-ha County Ditch 30 (CD30) watersheds in Faribault County, Minnesota, from 2018—23 and 2021—23, respectively. Three large bioreactor beds treat flow from the CD62 watershed. Water table depths in the outlet structures of the three bioreactors (BR1, BR2, and BR3) are included for 2021—23. Also, water table depths at three locations in the beds are included for 2022 and 2023. The beds were recharged with new woodchips during 2020; limited bioreactor data exist for 2018, and no bioreactor data exist for 2019—20. The purpose of the research was twofold: 1) to evaluate the performance of the bioreactors and the percentage of watershed discharge that was treated by them, and 2) to establish hydrologic and nutrient load pairing of side-by-side watersheds for a future study of management change on one of the watersheds.

A related dataset includes discharge and water chemistry data for CD62 and the bioreactors for the period September 2016 through July 2017:

• Feyereisen, Gary W.; Ghane, Ehsan; Schumacher, Todd; Dalzell, Brent J.; Williams, Mark R. (2024). Data from: Can woodchip bioreactors be used at a catchment scale? Nitrate Performance and sediment considerations. Ag Data Commons. Dataset. https://doi.org/10.15482/USDA.ADC/27932151.v1

Water chemistry analyses are yet being conducted on calendar year 2024 samples; data from these analyses and related hydrologic data are forthcoming.

Methods of sample and data collection are similar to those described in the above-referenced dataset and the related peer-reviewed publication:

• Feyereisen, G. W., Ghane, E., Schumacher, T. W., Dalzell, B. J., & Williams, M. R. (2023). Can Woodchip Bioreactors Be Used at a Catchment Scale? Nitrate Performance and Sediment Considerations. Journal of the ASABE, 66(2), 367-379. https://doi.org/10.13031/ja.15496

A nitrate sensor (Hach Nitratax) was installed in CD62 in 2019. The monitoring station at CD30 was instrumented similarly to CD62: discharge (in a 15-inch drainage main) with area-velocity technology (Teledyne ISCO 2150), nitrate sensor (Hach Nitratax), and flow-weighted autosampling (Teledyne ISCO 6712).

The file “CD30-62 map w labels.png” shows the watershed boundaries and the location of the woodchip bioreactors (WBR) at the outlet of CD62.