This resource contains high-frequency EXOS sensor data, including conductivity, dissolved oxygen, turbidity, fdom, and temperature from the King's Creek watershed. This study was conducted on the South Fork of the Kings Creek research watershed (outlet location: 39.092281, -96.58719) within Konza Prairie Biological Station (KBPS) near Manhattan (KS, USA). At the USGS gage located on the mainstem (06879560; est. 1979), Kings Creek is a 5th order intermittent stream draining 1059-ha of tallgrass prairie that is actively managed using controlled buns at varying frequencies (1-20 year return intervals) and grazing by bison or cattle. Kings Creek ranges in elevation from 338 to 430 m above sea level and drains into the Kansas River. The region is within a midwestern continental climate, with temperatures ranging from 4 to 22°C and mean annual precipitation averaging about 780 mm/yr.

This site lies within the Flint Hills ecoregion of eastern KS and northeastern OK, has a mean annual temperature of 11.7ºC (1983-2020), and 811 mm annual precipitation (1983-2020) with high interannual variability and an estimated 75% of annual precipitation occurring during late spring and early summer (Hayden 1998, Sadayappan et al. 2023). The AIMS study catchment, the South Fork of Kings Creek, is grazed by bison year-round, and includes sub-catchments with variable prescribed burn history, but the entire study area was burned in early April 2021. The riparian vegetation is deciduous gallery forest and the highest portion of the landscape is tallgrass prairie (Dodds et al. 2004) dominated by warm-season grasses, though woody encroachment has occurred in most subwatersheds (Sadayappan et al. 2023)*. The underlying bedrock of the Flint Hills ecotone is characterized as limestone, mudstone, and shale with predominately silty clay loam soils that rest atop (Hayden 1998, Vero et al. 2018).

Included in this excel file are four tabs: 1. Metadata: methods, authorship and site information; 2. Data Types: column descriptions for each data file in this resource; 3. Site_info; site name, latitude and longitude for the site at which the sensor was deployed; 4. QAQC'ed EXO data

Sensors were maintained every three weeks according to this SOP: Flynn, S., S. Godsey, R. Hale, R. Lanfear, E. Seybold, S. Speir, M. Wolford (2025). Sensor Maintenance SOP, HydroShare, http://www.hydroshare.org/resource/f056a431a6794d2dbf9f6206c00ac560
Sensors were calibrated quarterly according to this SOP: Flynn, S., R. Lanfear, E. Seybold (2025). Sensor Calibration SOP, HydroShare, http://www.hydroshare.org/resource/85fa713daf0142a4b45e3bc8ff1d1e30
FDOM was corrected for Turbidity and Temperature according to the methods from Downing et al 2012.
For YSI data, please see: Flynn, S., C. L. Brown, R. J. Ramos, A. Sommerville, c. dorantes, M. Busch, E. Seybold, A. Burgin (2025). King's Creek, field data (AIMS_GP_KNZ_YSIS), HydroShare, http://www.hydroshare.org/resource/85fd35211db04e6a8cc9b73c6e09781e
For the water depth time series, please see Zipper, S., C. L. Brown, E. Seybold (2025). Kings Creek (Konza Prairie) Pressure Transducer Data (AIMS_GP_KNZ_PRES), HydroShare, http://www.hydroshare.org/resource/6a7e26d57f254c2c8ba5900cfade5bbe
For the discharge time series, please see *Link DISC data from site as a related resource!!*
For information about installing sensors, please see https://www.hydroshare.org/resource/703cf05242f7455c8dfb072dd072c962/
For information about nutrient grab sample data, please see Smith, C., C. L. Brown, S. Flynn, S. Plont, S. Speir, M. Busch, C. Atkinson (2025). AIMS King's Creek nutrient data (AIMS_GP_KNZ_NUTR), HydroShare, http://www.hydroshare.org/resource/4489fca6b315463f9146a9187dbce070
For information about DOC grab sample data, please see Plont, S., S. Speir, M. Wolford, N. Jones, S. Flynn, C. L. Brown, E. Seybold (2025). AIMS_GP_KNZ_DOCS, HydroShare, http://www.hydroshare.org/resource/5a0e948d60354dfbb3834224fbc424fe