Streamflow, water quality, and constituent loads and yields, Scituate Reservoir drainage area, Rhode Island, water year 2020

Abstract

As part of a long-term cooperative program to monitor water quality within the Scituate Reservoir drainage area, the U.S. Geological Survey in cooperation with Providence Water (sometimes known as Providence Water Supply Board) collected streamflow and water-quality data in tributaries to the Scituate Reservoir, Rhode Island. Streamflow and concentrations of chloride and sodium estimated from records of specific conductance for 14 tributaries were used to calculate loads of chloride and sodium during water year 2020 (October 1, 2019, through September 30, 2020). Water-quality samples were collected by Providence Water at 37 sampling stations on tributaries to the Scituate Reservoir during water year 2020. These water-quality data are summarized by using values of central tendency and are used, in combination with measured (or estimated) streamflows, to calculate loads and yields of selected water-quality constituents for water year 2020 in this report. Annual mean streamflows for monitoring stations in this study ranged from about 0.32 to 26.7 cubic feet per second during water year 2020. At the 14 continuous-record streamgages, tributaries transported about 2,200 metric tons of chloride and 1,400 metric tons of sodium to the Scituate Reservoir; annual chloride yields for the tributaries ranged from 13 to 110 metric tons per square mile, and annual sodium yields ranged from 8.8 to 6 metric tons per square mile. At the stations where water-quality samples were collected by Providence Water, the medians of the median daily loads were 220 kilograms chloride per day, 10 grams nitrite as nitrogen per day, 500 grams nitrate as nitrogen per day, 290 grams orthophosphate as phosphate per day, 55,000 million colony forming units of coliform bacteria per day, and less than 900 million colony forming units of Escherichia coli per day. The medians of the median yields were 76 kilograms chloride per day per square mile, 4.1 grams nitrite as nitrogen per day per square mile, 240 grams nitrate as nitrogen per day per square mile, 100 grams orthophosphate as phosphate per day per square mile, 31,000 million colony forming units of coliform bacteria per day per square mile, and less than 260 million colony forming units of Escherichia coli per day per square mile.