Tidal Wetlands Soil Organic Carbon and Estuarine Characteristics, USA, 1972-2015

The data were compiled from several existing data resources and include the following: soil organic carbon stock estimates, the proportion of the catchment area containing the wetlands that is barren, tidal wetland area, nontidal wetland land, open water, saltwater zone, mixed zone, agricultural, urban, forest, and wetland areas, land elevation, ocean salinity, sea surface temperature, ocean dissolved inorganic phosphorus, estuary latitude, longitude, depth, perimeter, salinity, and estuary volume, river flow, carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus river flux, sediment organic carbon content, windspeed, mean temperature, daily and mean precipitation, frost days, and the population within each catchment.

Estuaries were also classified to one of six typological categories. Coastal locations were determined by natural environmental and political divisions within the US. The data were used to investigate how tidal wetland soil organic carbon density is distributed across the continental US among various coastal locations, estuarine typologies, vegetation types, water regimes, and management regimes, and to identify whether SOC density is correlated with different environmental variables.