Reynolds Creek Experimental Watershed and Critical Zone Observatory

The Reynolds Creek Experimental Watershed (RCEW) was established in 1960 as an "outdoor hydrological laboratory" to investigate hydrological processes in the interior northwestern US. The experience there illustrates four of the benefits of long-term, place-based research. First, they are sites for field instrument development and testing. At RCEW, important research on measurement of solid precipitation, discharge in high bedload environments, snow water equivalent, and various soil parameters has been conducted. The snow pillow is currently standard instrumentation in the western USA. Second, they are model testing and development locations. Multi-year, multi-parameter data are critical for rigorous model testing and very difficult to obtain with standard grants. The RCEW is the home of widely-used snow and soil models as well as a model testing location. Sites of this nature should be considered "standards" for model testing. Third, they foster multi-disciplinary research. The recent designation of Critical Zone Observatory has fostered research in geophysics, stream chemistry and soil carbon, all of which is built upon previous data and research in the RCEW which would be rare outside a long-term facility. Fourth, they provide a template for scaling and spatial integration. Many watersheds contain environmental gradients, but is not clear which processes and what level of spatial resolution are required to capture those gradients. At the RCEW, research on snow dynamics, soil temperature and soil depth, along with remote sensing, have provided key insights into scaling up point measurements and capturing critical environmental gradients. These watersheds should also be used for testing larger-scale regional-to-global models that are typically hard to verify. These benefits come at a cost: continuous funding for monitoring and upkeep. This should be weighed in the context of the benefits they confer.