Kings Creek NEON - United States of America

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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/king
Site Manager
Becky Eaves
Site Description
King's Creek (KING) is an aquatic NEON field site located in the Flint Hills region of Kansas just 10 km (6 mi.) south of Manhattan, KS. The site is encompassed within a 13.2 km2 (3260 acre) watershed within the Konza Prairie Biological Station, which is hosted by the Nature Conservancy and Kansas State University. It is a second-order creek that drains a watershed of mixed agricultural, pasture and tallgrass prairie land. The surrounding region consists of grasslands, forests and agricultural land cover types and includes the largest remaining areas of unplowed tallgrass prairie in North America. KING is part of the NEON Prairie Peninsula Domain (D06), which stretches from Kansas through Nebraska and Iowa to southern Minnesota, and east to encompass Illinois and most of Indiana. The Domain hosts four other NEON field sites, one other aquatic and three terrestrial, all of which are located in Kansas. KING is colocated with the KONA terrestrial field site. Land use and land use management are key grand challenge themes for this Domain.
Relationships to other sites
This site groups with:
Last modified
2025-09-17 14:55:37

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General Characteristics and Status
Site Status
Operational
Year Established
2015
Observed properties
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
View in site map
Centroid/Representative Coordinates

Latitude: 39.10506 Longitude: -96.60336

Size
ca. 1320.00ha
Elevation (average)
324.00msl
Elevation (min)
333.00msl
Elevation (max)
443.00msl
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Site information [.json]

Centroid/representative coordinates [.shp] [.kml] [.geojson]
GEO-BON Biome
Fresh water rivers
Terrestrial
Biome
Fresh Water Rivers
Ecosystem Type
Forest
Deciduous Forest
Rivers
Fresh Water Rivers
Air Temperature: Average Annual
12.70°C
Precipitation Annual
860.00mm
Geology
KING lies above mafic metavolcanic rock, which is a metamorphic volcanic rock having abundant dark-colored minerals, typically feldspar, amphibole, and/or pyroxene. It is part of the Council Grove Group, a geologic group from the early Permian age containing limestone interbedded with gray, red, and green shale. The creek itself is composed of alluvium, a sediment deposited by flowing water made of gravel, sand, silt, clay, or other rock particulates. In King's Creek, the substrate consists of cobble, boulder, pebbles, sand, and clay.
Vegetation
The creek flows through native tallgrass prairie; however, the NEON study reach is shaded during the growing season by deciduous gallery forest in the riparian area. Mature bur oak (Quercus macrocarpa), chinquapin oak (Quercus muehlenbergii), walnut (Juglans sp.), elm (Ulmus sp.), hackberry (Celtis occidentalis), and hickory (Carya sp.) trees extend five to one hundred meters from the stream channel. Beyond the gallery forest riparian area, tallgrass prairie dominates the area. Shrubs, bushes, vines, and forbs form a majority of the ground cover.
Hydrology
KING is a second-order wadeable stream that drains a mixed agricultural, pasture, and tallgrass prairie-dominated watershed. The flow regime of the 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