Runoff and erosion from small forest watersheds on the Boise Basin Experimental Forest

By September of 2004, ten small watersheds ranging in size from 0.9 to 12.2 hectares were installed in the Boise Basin Experimental Forest (BBEF) in east/central Idaho approximately 48 kilometers (30 miles) northeast of Boise, Idaho and 5 kilometers (3 miles) southeast of the village Idaho City, Idaho. The long term objective of the study was to compare impacts of different management activities, but in the early years, none of the watersheds received any management treatments or natural disturbances. This data publication contains daily temperature, relative humidity, precipitation, wind speed, and runoff measurements recorded from 2004 through 2010. Also included are soil loss and ground cover data collected during this same time period. Additionally, a shaded relief map of the hillslope and raster image file of the BBEF are included, along with shapefiles providing the boundaries of each watershed. Watershed treatment information and timing is also provided, which includes details denoting that due to insufficient funds four of the ten watersheds scheduled for treatment were not treated. Two were designated as controls and the remaining four watersheds were burned in 2008 two of which were salvaged logged the following year.
The purpose of this study is to measure the watershed impacts of current forest fuel management practices, simulated wildfire, and to present the runoff and erosion rates observed on these watersheds prior to and following any treatment in order to evaluate natural variability in small watershed studies.
For additional information regarding this study and the pre- and post-fire analyses of these data see Elliot and Glaza (2007 and 2009), and analysis evaluating the topographic features of post-fire mineral soil can be found in Dobre et al. (2014). Data were published on 03/31/2021. On 04/15/2021 additional information was added to the metadata.