ABSTRACT:

This dataset contains:
Values for 42 variables related to topography, climate, vegetation, geology, and anthropogenic activities collected from 2001 to 2020. These variables were used to assess the drivers of streamflow drought deficit and duration across 2,550 stream gauges in the contiguous United States, including both natural and human-impacted sites. The computation method for each factor is detailed in Table 1.

The dataset also includes trend analyses of drought duration and deficit from 1980 to 2020, performed using the Mann-Kendall test under three conditions: independence, short-term persistence, and long-term persistence.

The complete analysis and findings are presented in Vicario, S.A., Hornberger, G.M., Mazzoleni, M., Garcia, M. (2025), "Drivers and trends of streamflow droughts in natural and human-impacted basins across the contiguous United States," Journal of Hydrology, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2025.132908.

ABSTRACT:

This resource contains 49 factors categorized into five groups: climatic (14), topographic (11), vegetation-related (5), anthropogenic (12), and geologic (7) factors, concerning 383 watersheds within the GAGES-II gages dataset (https:// water.usgs.gov/GIS/metadata/usgswrd/XML/gagesII_Sept2011.xml) across the contiguous United States (CONUS).

The selection of the 383 watersheds out of the 9067 (in the CONUS) from GAGES-II was determined by the availability of daily streamflow data from 1990 to 2020 and its anthropogenic influence. For further details, refer to section 2.1 of https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2024.130984.

The factors represent average values for each watershed spanning 1990 to 2020, calculated using publicly available data. Detailed information on these factors, including their sources and calculation methods, is provided in Tables 1 and 2 of the PDF document (Methodology_factors.pdf). The Excel file (Factors.xlsx) contains the classification of the gages and their associated factor values.

The computation of these factors was conducted for the manuscript authored by Sara Alonso Vicario, George M. Hornberger, Maurizio Mazzoleni, and Margaret Garcia, titled "The Importance of Climate and Anthropogenic Influence in Precipitation Partitioning in the Contiguous United States," published in the Journal of Hydrology, Volume 633 (2024). The manuscript is accessible at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2024.130984.