Monitoring Data

Hydrographic, accretion, herbaceous marsh vegetation, soil properties, and surface elevation data collected by the LDNR / CRD Monitoring Section are now available on-line. All downloaded files will be in zipped, comma-delimited format with headers that describe the data. For a detailed explanation of all data types, please review the Data Descriptions document.

Hydrographic Data

Hydrographic data are now available in two general formats: data collected monthly and data collected hourly. Parameters sampled generally include: water level, water temperature, specific conductance, and salinity. In some rare instances water velocity and wind speed/wind direction are sampled at stations where hourly data are collected.

Monthly Data

Link: Retrieve Monthly Data (via SONRIS Lite)

Monthly hydrographic data can be downloaded either by project, CRMS (Coastwide Reference Monitoring System) site, or station number. These files are relatively small, as there are only approximately 12 records per station per year. In general, there is a much larger spatial distribution of stations where monthly data are collected than where hourly data are collected. Note: for CRMS stations, these monthly data comprise Soil Porewater data.

Hourly Data

Link: Retrieve Hourly Data (via SONRIS Lite)

Hourly hydrographic data may also be downloaded either by project, CRMS (Coastwide Reference Monitoring System) site, or station number; however these files are much larger than the monthly files. For example, since one year of hourly sampling will yield approximately 8,760 records, a file for a project collecting data at 3 stations for a period of 5 years will contain approximately 131,400 records. Many typical spreadsheet programs will not be able to completely open a file of this size. For this reason, we recommend that hourly data be downloaded by station and not by project.

Data are not necessarily available for download from all stations. However, if you would like to request data that are not currently available from the database, an alternate request option is available (see Other Data, below).

Accretion Data

Link: Retrieve Accretion Data (via SONRIS Lite)

Accretion data can be downloaded either by project, CRMS (Coastwide Reference Monitoring System) site, or station number. These data are collected from specific locations within herbaceous marsh vegetation areas and forested swamp/bottomland hardwood vegetation areas, and are collected at 6 months and 12 months after monitoring station establishment. Accretion measurements show rates of soil accretion or soil erosion at a location.

Forested Swamp Vegetation Data

Link: Retrieve Forested Swamp Vegetation Data (via SONRIS Lite)

Forested Swamp Vegetation data can be downloaded either by project, CRMS (Coastwide Reference Monitoring System) site, or station number.  These data are collected from specific areas that represent vegetative communities, and are collected at various time intervals. Individual stations consist of 20m x 20m plots, and parameters sampled include: vegetation species present, densiometer readings, percent canopy cover, and tree trunk diameter.

Herbaceous Marsh Vegetation Data

Link: Retrieve Herbaceous Marsh Vegetation Data (via SONRIS Lite)

Herbaceous Marsh Vegetation data can be downloaded either by project, CRMS(Coastwide Reference Monitoring System) site, or station number. These data are collected from specific areas that represent vegetative communities, and are collected at various time intervals ranging from seasonally to every 2-3 years. Parameters sampled include: vegetation species present, relative abundance and dominance of species within an area, and vegetative community type.

Soil Properties Data

Link: Retrieve Soil Properties Data (via SONRIS Lite)

Soil Properties data can be downloaded either by project, CRMS (Coastwide Reference Monitoring System) site, or station number. For CRMS stations, these data are collected exactly one time: when the station is established.  Parameters sampled include wet & dry soil pH, soil specific conductance, soil salinity, soil moisture content, bulk density, percent organic matter, and wet & dry volume.

Surface Elevation Data

Link: Retrieve Surface Elevation Data (via SONRIS Lite)

Surface Elevation data can be downloaded either by project, CRMS (Coastwide Reference Monitoring System) site, or station number. These data are collected at specific locations within herbaceous marsh vegetation areas and forested swamp/bottomland hardwood vegetation areas, and are collected at various time intervals ranging from every 6 months to every two 2-3 years. The sampling parameters consist of several sediment elevation measurements taken relative to a fixed sub-surface datum at each location.

Other Data

Link: Request Other Data

Some monitoring stations collect data that are for parameters not listed above, or have data that has not yet been made available for download. This option is available for requesting these data.

Graph Data

Link:Graph Data

Monitoring Data can be graphed at the following intervals: 30 days, 60 days, and 90 days.

All Monitoring Data

Link: Retrieve All Monitoring Data

The files on this site are complete dumps of all the data in the central database as of the end of the last full month. On this site you will find a single large historical file of all data prior to 1/1/2005 for each data type. There will also be an annual file for each full year subsequent to 2005, and monthly files for each full month of the current year. The single large historical file, the annual files, and the monthly files will be updated on the first of each month if any of the data they contain have been updated or added to in the prior month. Please keep in mind that the file size may be in excess of 175 MB and may take a substantial amount of time to download.

If you want a more specific subset of data, or if you want to check for mid-month data, criteria-specific data searches are available at the OCRM website and can be accessed by using the SONRIS Interactive GIS Map link from this address: http://dnr.louisiana.gov/crm/.