Tenderfoot Creek Experimental Forest fluvial sediment transport data

This data publication contains average daily sediment transport data recorded at eight locations in the Tenderfoot Creek Experimental Forest watershed from 1994 to 2014. Four sediment samplers were placed at the bottom of four sub-watersheds flowing into Tenderfoot Creek. These sub-watersheds are Spring Park Creek, Sun Creek, Stringer Creek and Bubbling Creek. Two additional samplers were placed on Sun Creek above and below a logging road constructed in 2000, and two sediment samplers were placed on Tenderfoot Creek above and below the four sub-watersheds. Sun Creek and Spring Park Creek had experimental shelterwood harvests in 1999 and 2000. Portions of these units were prescribed burned between 2001 and 2003. Two adjacent sub-watersheds, Bubbling Creek and Stringer Creek, serve as control units for the silvicultural treatments (McCaughey et al. 2006).
The Tenderfoot Creek Experimental Forest was established in 1961 as an experimental watershed in representative lodgepole pine forest common east of the Continental Divide. Hydrologic and climatologic monitoring sites were established in the early 1990's to monitor environmental effects of various silvicultural methods used to restore and regenerate healthy lodgepole pine forests. Tenderfoot Creek is a major tributary of the Smith and Missouri rivers, thus providing an important hydrologic resource for much of central Montana (McCaughey et al. 2006).
Sediment transport data directly correlates with streamflow data collected at six hydrologic flumes and one open channel streamflow gauge on the experimental forest. Annual precipitation and water quality data are also collected at Tenderfoot Creek Experimental Forest. (See Cross-Reference section for access to these data.) This data publication (which went live 09/26/2013) is an update to an older version of the data (https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2010-0006, see the Cross-Reference section). This updated data publication includes all of the data in the first edition with three additional years of data (up through 2012), data flags (to indicate unreliable data), updated title, and minor edits to the metadata. On 07/31/2015 two more years of data were added to this product. Minor metadata updates were made on 12/14/2016 and on 09/08/2020.