Kings Creek NEON - United States of America

Basic Information
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Site Name
Kings Creek NEON
Short name
KING
Country
United States of America
Web Address
https://www.neonscience.org/field-sites/field-sites-map/KING
Site Manager
Becky Eaves
Site Description
King's Creek is located within the Konza Prairie Biological Station approximately five kilometers west of the KONZ tower. [10] It is a second-order creek that drains a mixed agricultural, pasture, and tallgrass prairie dominated watershed. The Konza Prairie is located in the Flint Hills region of Kansas just 10km south of Manhattan, KS. It is hosted by the Nature Conservancy and Kansas State University. The KING site is encompassed in the NEON Prairie Peninsula Domain, which includes the largest remaining areas of unplowed tallgrass prairie in North America. The Prairie Peninsula domain consists of grasslands, forests, and agricultural cover types. The Domain hosts four other NEON field sites, one other aquatic and three ...
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Last modified
2020-07-27 10:07:33

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General Characteristics and Status
Site Status
Operational
Year Established
2015
Observed properties
atmospheric parameterecosystem parameterbiological parameterchemical parametergenetic parameterlandscape parametersoil parameterairtemperatureheatfluxozoneconcentrationprecipitationintensitylatentheatleafareaindexplantdiversityspeciesabundanceabovegroundbiomasssoilcarbondioxydefluxDNAsequencelandcoversoilmoisturecontent
Affiliation and Network Specific Information
Affiliation
GERI✔This site is a verified "GERI" member.
NEON✔ (KING)This site is a verified "NEON" member.
Photos
King's Creek salt injection
King's Creek salt injection
Geographic
Marker
300 km
200 mi
View in site map
Centroid/Representative Coordinates

Latitude: 39.10506 Longitude: -96.60336

Size
ca. 1320.00ha
Elevation (average)
366.00msl
Elevation (min)
333.00msl
Elevation (max)
443.00msl
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Site information [.json]

Centroid/representative coordinates [.shp] [.kml]
GEO-BON Biome
Fresh water rivers
Terrestrial
Biome
Fresh Water Rivers
Ecosystem Type
Forest
Deciduous Forest
Rivers
Fresh Water Rivers
Precipitation Annual
860.00mm
Geology
Alluvium. Pleistocene and Holocene.

Vegetation
The riparian area adjacent to Kings Creek consists of gallery forest. Mature bur (Quercus macrocarpa) and chinquapin oak (Quercus muehlenbergii), walnut, elm, hackberry (Celtis occidentalis) and hickory trees extend five to one hundred meters from the stream channel. Beyond the gallery forest riparian area tallgrass prairie dominates land cover. Ground cover consists of shrubs, bushes, vines and forbs that cover the majority of the area. [9]
Hydrology
Kings Creek site is a second order wadeable stream that drains a mixed agricultural, pasture and tallgrass prairie-dominated watershed. The flow regime of Kings Creek is considered intermittent and flashy: discharge can be very low or entirely dry during an annual period lasting from August through February, when spring rains recharge the water table. High-intensity storms may cause flow to increase several orders of magnitude over the course of a few hours during any time of year. The creek feeds into the McDowell creek which then feeds into the Kansas river. As well as being a part of NEON, King's Creek is a part of the Hydrologic Benchmark Network and is the only basin in that network to drain pristine, native, tallgrass prairie.
Site Type
Platform
Design of Experimentation
partly experimentation
Scale of Experimentation
catchment scale
Design of Observation
mainly observation
Scale of Observation
entire catchment
Permanent Power Supply
Yes
Accessible All Year
Yes
Permanent Operation
Yes