Relations of dissolved-oxygen variability, selected field constituents, and metabolism estimates to land use and nutrients in high-gradient Boston Mountain streams, Arkansas.

Continuous monitoring data can be extremely useful for assessing water-quality conditions particularly for variables, such as dissolved oxygen, that exhibit dynamic diel swings. As a means of evaluating stream dissolved oxygen criteria used by the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ), we compared continuous dissolved oxygen (DO) data collected at five small- to moderate-sized (watersheds 10-100 mi), high-gradient streams in the Boston Mountains distributed across a land-use and nutrient condition gradient. The sampled streams exhibit a general pattern established for other aquatic systems (e.