Historical stream and valley sedimentation survey data for the Whitewater River Valley, Minnesota, United States (1855–1994)

Abstract

Between the late 1930s and mid-1960s, Soil Conservation Service (SCS) and United States Geological Survey (USGS) personnel established 107 floodplain survey transects in the Whitewater River Valley (MN) to investigate stream and valley sedimentation conditions throughout the basin. These transects were the basis for auger boring and optical elevation surveys conducted by field personnel. The former was performed to measure floodplain legacy sediment thickness, or the thickness of the sediment deposited since the widespread introduction of Euro-American agriculture around 1855. The latter was performed to capture the continuous geometry of the river valley via elevation measurements at discrete points along the transect. Since the late 1930s, multiple government agencies have sampled these transects for multiple sedimentation surveys yielding a near 140-year record (1855-1994) of river valley change that has not been available to the public. The relevant survey periods include 1939–1941 (SCS), 1964–1968 (USGS), 1975 (SCS), 1978 (SCS), and 1993–1995 (SCS–Natural Resources Conservation Service [NRCS]). Data preservation work conducted in 2008–2014 (NRCS-Pennsylvania State University) focused on a GNSS survey of transect monuments (markers) and continued work in 2021–2025 (University of Minnesota Twin Cities) focused on compiling all the previous data since 1939 for publication and calculating elevation change rates across the basin. We have compiled the historical sedimentation survey data pertaining to these transects and distilled it into eight files: (A) transects, (B) monuments, (C) boring surveys, (D) elevation surveys, (E) monument coordinates, (F) elevation change rates, (G) elevation change rate calculation exception zones, and (H) elevation change rate statistics.