Hillslope hydrologic monitoring data following Hurricane Maria in 2017, Puerto Rico, July 2018 to June 2020

Dates

Publication Date: 2020-09-01
Start Date: 2018-07-12
End Date: 2020-06-01

Citation

Smith, J.B., Thomas, M.A., Ashland, F., Michel, A.R., Wayllace, A., and Mirus, B.B., 2020, Hillslope hydrologic monitoring data following Hurricane Maria in 2017, Puerto Rico, July 2018 to June 2020: U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P9548YK2.

Summary

This data release includes time-series, qualitative descriptions, and laboratory testing data from two monitoring stations installed in Puerto Rico following Hurricane Maria in 2017, which led to tens of thousands of landslides across the island (Bessette-Kirton et al., 2017). The stations were installed in July of 2018 to investigate subsurface hydrologic response to rainfall and develop a quantitative link between rainfall and landsliding. The Toro Negro site is located within the state protected Toro Negro rainforest near 18°10’N, 66°34’W and the Utuado site is located outside the city of Utuado near 18°17’N, 66°39’W. The soil found at the Toro Negro site is low-permeability, fine-grained and cohesive, and underlain by saprolite. [...]

Summary

This data release includes time-series, qualitative descriptions, and laboratory testing data from two monitoring stations installed in Puerto Rico following Hurricane Maria in 2017, which led to tens of thousands of landslides across the island (Bessette-Kirton et al., 2017). The stations were installed in July of 2018 to investigate subsurface hydrologic response to rainfall and develop a quantitative link between rainfall and landsliding. The Toro Negro site is located within the state protected Toro Negro rainforest near 18°10’N, 66°34’W and the Utuado site is located outside the city of Utuado near 18°17’N, 66°39’W. The soil found at the Toro Negro site is low-permeability, fine-grained and cohesive, and underlain by saprolite. In contrast, the soil found at Utuado has higher hydraulic conductivity, relatively incohesive, and shallowly underlain by granodioritic bedrock.

Instrumentation was installed at each site to continuously measure precipitation, air temperature, barometric pressure, volumetric water content, pore-water pressure, and soil matric potential, logged at 15-minute intervals. An electronics enclosure with a data logger, rain gage, and an instrumented soil pit (SP1) comprised each site. Volumetric soil water content was measured at 5 depths in each pit, using GS-1 (Meter Group) ruggedized dielectric sensors (range of 0-0.64 volumetric water content in mineral soils). Soil matric potential was measured at each site with two T8 (Meter Group) tensiometers (-80 to 100 kilopascals [kPa]) and one dielectric ceramic disc MPS-6 (Meter Group) sensor (-6 to -1000 kPa). Pore-water pressure was measured at two depths with vibrating-wire piezometers (Durham Geo) (0 to 70 kPa). Each pressure sensor has an integrated thermistor and the associated temperature readings are included. In October 2019 an additional soil-pit was established at Toro Negro (SP2) to clarify the signal of two existing volumetric water content sensors with questionable readings. The data released with this report have not undergone any significant alterations since being recorded by the datalogger and are subject to inaccuracies related to equipment failure or loss of calibration. Missing data is represented as “not a number” (NaN). Also, there are time periods where groundwater conditions are fluctuating outside of the instruments’ measurement range and these data are considered clipped, which means the values recorded are at the limit of the the measurement range of the device, but the actual values are likely outside that range. These values have been left in the record, but the values can be viewed as questionable. Additionally, the tensiometer data returns erroneous data when it cavitates, and a Boolean data quality flag (vector “tensiometerFlag”) has been added to show where the data are likely reliable (1) or not reliable (0). The vibrating-wire piezometers are equipped with low air-entry filter tips (50 micron) and allow limited suctional range, so these values should be viewed with skepticism. All values recorded by the piezometer are dependent on filter-saturation and, consequently, readings will be invalid during and after long periods of drought, until the tip has become re-saturated. These time-series data are found in the “utuado_15min.csv” and “toroNegro_15min.csv” spreadsheets for the Utuado and Toro Negro sites, respectively.

Soil samples were taken from the documented soil pits at the time of installation and their index properties were measured in the Unsaturated Soil Mechanics Laboratory at Colorado School of Mines according to ASTM standards (ASTM International, 2008). The properties measured include particle size distributions (ASTM-152H), Atterberg plastic limit (PL) and liquid limit (LL) (ASTM D-4318), soil classifications according to the Unified Soil Classification System (USCS), specific gravity (Gs) (ASTM D-854), unsaturated and saturated soil hydraulic properties including hysteretic saturated hydraulic conductivities and unsaturated soil-water retention curves during wetting and drying conditions for the van Genuchten-Mualem model (van Genuchten, 1980) using the TRIM method (Wayllace and Lu, 2012), and strength properties including cohesion (c’) and the angle of internal friction (f') determined using direct shear tests on saturated samples (ASTM D-3080) that included modifications for measurements at relatively low effective stresses (i.e., 0.2-20 kPa) (Likos et al., 2010).

An additional “monitoring.readme.pdf” file is included and contains these details along with naming conventions for the hydrologic monitoring data. Logs and photographs of the soil pits at Utuado and Toro Negro are documented in the “PR UTU-ELT Monitoring Site Soil Pit Logs.pdf” file. Further details of this study can be found in the accompanying journal article (Thomas et al., 2020).
Any use of trade, firm, or product names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Government.

References:

ASTM International (2008). Annual book of ASTM Standards (Vol. 04.08). West Conshohocken, PA: ASTM International.

Bessette-Kirton, E.K., Coe, J.A., Kelly, M.A., Cerovski-Darriau, C. Schulz, W.H., 2019, Map data from landslides triggered by Hurricane Maria in four study areas of Puerto Rico: U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P9OW4SLX.

Likos, W.J., Wayllace, A., Godt, J.W., Lu, N., 2010, Modified direct shear apparatus for unsaturated sands at low suction and stress: Geotechnical Testing Journal, 33(4), 286-298, https://doi.org/10.1520/GTJ102927.

Thomas, M.A., Mirus, B.B., Smith, J.B., 2020, Evidence that soil-hydraulic properties can modulate utility of hydro-meteorological thresholds for rainfall-induced landsliding. Hydrological Processes, https://doi.org/10.1002/hyp.13885.

van Genuchten, M. Th., 1980, A closed-form equation for predicting the hydraulic conductivity of unsaturated soils, Soil Sci. Soc. Am. J., 44, 892–898, doi:10.2136/sssaj1980.03615995004400050002x.

Wayllace, A., Lu, N., 2012, Transient water release and imbibitions method for rapidly measuring wetting and drying soil water retention and hydraulic conductivity functions: Geotechnical Testing Journal, 35, 1-15, https://doi.org/10.1520/GTJ103596.

Contacts

Point of Contact :: Benjamin B Mirus
Originator :: Joel B Smith, Matthew A Thomas, Francis Ashland, Abigail R Michel, Alexandra Wayllace, Benjamin B Mirus
Metadata Contact :: GHSC Data Steward, U.S. Geological Survey, Geologic Hazards Science Center
Publisher :: U.S. Geological Survey
Distributor :: U.S. Geological Survey - ScienceBase
USGS Mission Area :: Natural Hazards
SDC Data Owner :: Landslide Hazards Program

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PuertoRicoDataRelease.xml Original FGDC Metadata	View	25.93 KB	application/fgdc+xml
toroNegro_15min.csv		16.41 MB	text/csv
utuado_15min.csv		12.78 MB	text/csv
PR UTU-ELT Monitoring Site Soil Pit Logs.pdf		680.58 KB	application/pdf
testing.report.pdf		984.72 KB	application/pdf
monitoring.readme.pdf		162.96 KB	application/pdf
PuertoRico_TestingData.xlsx		3.97 MB	application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet

Related External Resources

Type: Related Primary Publication

Thomas, M.A., Mirus, B.B., and Smith, J.B., 2020, Hillslopes in humid‐tropical climates aren’t always wet: implications for hydrologic response and landslide initiation in Puerto Rico: Hydrological Processes, https://doi.org/10.1002/hyp.13885.	https://doi.org/10.1002/hyp.13885

Purpose

The data were collected to study the link between on hillslope hydrology and landslide occurrence in Puerto Rico.

Hillslope hydrologic monitoring data following Hurricane Maria in 2017, Puerto Rico, July 2018 to June 2020

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