Long-term hydrological, biogeochemical, and ecological data for the Kuparuk River, North Slope, Alaska

The Kuparuk River, located on Alaska's North Slope, is one of the most studied rivers in the Arctic. For nearly 40 seasons, physical, chemical, and biological parameters have been monitored continuously in a 5 km, 4th-order reach of the river during the short summer season when there is flow in this river. Flow decreases as the tundra begins to refreeze in the late autumn and these streams normally remain frozen until the spring freshet. The monitoring program has supported a 34-year phosphorus enrichment experiment conducted by the Arctic Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) program. Enrichment with phosphorus dramatically changed the structure and function of the primary producer community in the fertilized reach, with cascading effects in higher trophic levels. The datasets generated by this experiment have revealed significant increases in flow-weighted mean concentrations of nitrate and significant decreases in flow-weighted mean concentrations of dissolved organic N and P over time. In this paper, we present an overview of the nutrient concentration, discharge, macroinvertebrate, and Arctic grayling population datasets we have collected. The purposes of these datasets are to track changes resulting from the enrichment experiment, support ancillary research on responses of an Arctic stream to climate warming and permafrost thaw, and to provide input and validation data for models to predict future changes in Arctic streams.