McDiffett Creek (MCDI) is located within the Urban Prairie Research Area approximately 25 km southeast of the KONZ tower. [2] It is a second-order perennial stream flowing through the middle of agricultural land. The Urban Prairie Research Area is a small tract of land composed of native prairie, grazing, hay, and historically cultivated fields. It is managed by the Konza Prairie Biological Station in association with Kansas State University and is located in the Flint Hills region of Kansas just 10km south of Manhattan, KS. The MCDI 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 terrestrial, all of which are located in Kansas. Remote sensing surveys of this site collect lidar, spectrometer and high resolution RGB camera data. This site has one meteorological station located in the riparian area. The met station is outfitted with a subset of the same sensors used at terrestrial sites. Measurements include wind speed and direction, air temperature, barometric pressure, relative humidity, shortwave radiation, and PAR. This site has one phenocam near the stream. This site has one upstream sensor station and one downstream sensor station. Measurements include PAR, temperature, water quality [specific conductivity, chlorophyll a, dissolved oxygen content, pH, turbidity, and fluorescent dissolved organic matter (only downstream)], and nitrate is measured at the downstream station. Eight groundwater wells throughout the site collect specific conductivity, water tempertaure, and elevation of groundwater.Field ecologists collect the following types of observational data at this site: aquatic organisms (Aquatic Microbes (surface water),macroinvertebrates
microalgae, plants and macroalgae, zooplankton. Biogeochemical data on plants,sediment water and particulates.As well as physical aquatic data on
bathymetric maps, stage,secchi depth and depth profiles, and riparian assessment. Total data products planned for this site: 79
