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Research about Cottonwood Lake

Source-linked reports with geographic coverage including Cottonwood Lake.

6 recordsLinked to original sources
USGS2012

The Cottonwood Lake study area, a long-term wetland ecosystem monitoring site

The Cottonwood Lake study area is one of only three long-term wetland ecosystem monitoring sites in the prairie pothole region of North America; the other two are Orchid Meadows in South Dakota and St. Denis in Saskatchewan. Of the three, Cottonwood Lake has, by far, the longest continuous data-collection record. Research was initiated at the study area in 1966, and intensive investigations of the hydrology, chemistry, and biology of prairie pothole wetlands continue at the site today. This fact sheet describes the study area, provides an overview of wetland ecology research that has been conducted at the site in the past, and provides an introduction to current work being conducted at the study area by USGS scientists.

North Dakota↗
USGS2011

The role of critical zone processes in the evolution of the Prairie Pothole Region wetlands

The Prairie Pothole Region, which occupies 900,000 km2 of the north central USA and south central Canada, is one of the most important ecosystems in North America. It is characterized by millions of small wetlands whose chemistry is highly variable over short distances. The study involved the geochemistry of surface sediments, wetland water, and groundwater in the Cottonwood Lakes area of North Dakota, USA, whose 92 ha includes the dominant wetland hydrologic settings. The data show that oxygenated groundwater interacting with pyrite resident in a component of surficial glacial till derived from the marine Pierre Shale Formation has, over long periods of time, focused SO 4 2 - -bearing fluids from upland areas to topographically low areas. In these low areas, SO 4 2 - -enriched groundwater and wetlands have evolved, as has the CaSO4 mineral gypsum. Sulfur isotope data support the conclusion that isotopically light pyrite from marine shale is the source of SO 4 2 - . Literature data on wetland water composition suggests that this process has taken place over a large area in North Dakota.

North Dakota↗
USGS2011

Integration of Palmer Drought Severity Index and remote sensing data to simulate wetland water surface from 1910 to 2009 in Cottonwood Lake area, North Dakota

Spatiotemporal variations of wetland water in the Prairie Pothole Region are controlled by many factors; two of them are temperature and precipitation that form the basis of the Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI). Taking the 196 km 2 Cottonwood Lake area in North Dakota as our pilot study site, we integrated PDSI, Landsat images, and aerial photography records to simulate monthly water surface. First, we developed a new Wetland Water Area Index (WWAI) from PDSI to predict water surface area. Second, we developed a water allocation model to simulate the spatial distribution of water bodies at a resolution of 30 m. Third, we used an additional procedure to model the small wetlands (less than 0.8 ha) that could not be detected by Landsat. Our results showed that i) WWAI was highly correlated with water area with an R 2 of 0.90, resulting in a simple regression prediction of monthly water area to capture the intra- and inter-annual water change from 1910 to 2009; ii) the spatial distribution of water bodies modeled from our approach agreed well with the water locations visually identified from the aerial photography records; and iii) the R 2 between our modeled water bodies (including both large and small wetlands) and those from aerial photography records could be up to 0.83 with a mean average error of 0.64 km 2 within the study area where the modeled wetland water areas ranged from about 2 to 14 km 2 . These results indicate that our approach holds great potential to simulate major changes in wetland water surface for ecosystem service; however, our products could capture neither the short-term water change caused by intensive rainstorm events nor the wetland change caused by human activities.

North Dakota↗
USGS1995

The interaction of groundwater with prairie pothole wetlands in the Cottonwood Lake area, east-central North Dakota 1979-1990

The interaction of ground water with prairie wetlands in the Cottonwood Lake area has been the focus of research by the U.S. Geological Survey and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service since 1977. During this time, climatic conditions at the site ranged from near the driest to near the wettest of the century. Water levels in wetlands and in water-table wells throughout the study area responded to these changing climate conditions in a variety of ways. The topographically highest wetlands recharged ground water whenever they received water from precipitation. The wetland of principal interest, Wetland P1, which is at an intermediate altitude, received ground-water discharge much of the time, but it also had transpiration-induced seepage from it along parts of its perimeter during all but the wettest year. The large fluctuations of the water table in response to recharge and transpiration reflect the ease with which water moves vertically through the fractured till. Lateral movement of ground water is much slower; pore-water moves vertically through the fractured till. Lateral movement of ground water is much slower; pore-water velocities are generally less than 3 m yr −1 . The water supply to the wetlands is largely from precipitation during fall, winter, and spring. During these periods, precipitation either falls directly on the wetland, or precipitation that falls on the upland runs over frozen soils or saturated soils into the wetland. The average ratio of stage rise to total overwinter precipitation was 2.59 for the 12-year study period. After plants leaf out, precipitation generally results in much lower rises of the wetland water level. The average ratio of stage rise to over-summer precipitation was less than 1.0.

North Dakota↗
USGS1980

Hydrologic setting of wetlands in the Cottonwood Lake area, Stutsman County, North Dakota

Because of growing interest in the role of lakes and wetlands in the hydrology of the prairie environment, a group of wetlands in the Cottonwood Lake area, Stutsman County, are being instrumented for long-term hydrologic studies. The study site is on a regional topographic high near the eastern edge of the Missouri Coteau and is underlain by more than 400 feet of glacial drift, largely clayey, silty till. Long-term climatic data indicate the study area is in a water deficient area mean annual evaporation exceeds mean annual precipitation by about 18 inches. Different methods are being used for comparison of measurements and estimates of each hydrologic component interacting with the lakes and wetlands. For example, for 3 months during 1979, estimates of precipitation for the study site using data collected at National Weather Service stations differed from that measured by a recording gage at the study site by several tenths of an inch for 14-day totals and differed by more than 0.5 inch for individual storms. Numerical-simulation analysis of regional ground-water flow systems show the study site is situated in a regional recharge area, but local groundwater flow systems can discharge to lakes and wetlands within the recharge area. Instrumentation at the study site shows a complex interrelationship of wetlands and ground water. Based on data for 1979 only, some wetlands appear to recharge ground water, some wetlands are flow-through types where ground water enters one side and surface water seeps into the ground on the other side, and some wetlands are discharge points for ground water. Further, these interrelationships vary throughout the year.

North Dakota↗