GIS Characterization of Beaver Watershed

Beaver Reservoir watershed is located in Northwest Arkansas including portions of Madison, Washington, Benton, Carroll, Franklin and Crawford counties. This watershed is important to the Northwest Arkansas region because it supplies most of the drinking water for the major town and cities, and several rural water systems. The watershed consists of 308,971 ha with elevations ranging from approximately 341 m to 731 above mean sea level. It includes the Springfield Plateau and the Boston Mountains province within the Ozark Plateau physiographic region. There are approximately 581 km of streams, 532 km of shore line, and 3712 km of roads in the watershed vary extensively and are quite complex due to the soils in the Springdale Plateau is limestone, whereas in the Boston Mountains the dominant parent material is sandstone and shale. The differences in soils have led to the differences in landuse and land cover. The near surface geology in the watershed is also divided by physiographic provinces. Most of the Springfield Plateau surface geology is limestone, whereas the Boston Mountains are primarily sandstone and shale. Spatial detail of the steams, road, soils, and geology attributes in the watershed are presented in the report. The GIS database and characterization of the watershed offers an excellent beginning to future research and modeling of various water quality parameters in this and other watershed.