What is SPARROW?
|Back to Top| The newly released USGS study represents an enhanced geo-statistical analysis of the Mississippi River and Atchafalaya River Basins using the SPARROW (SPAtially Referenced Regressions On Watershed attributes) model. SPARROW is a watershed modeling technique for relating water-quality measurements made at a network of monitoring stations to attributes of the watersheds containing the stations, land-to-water delivery rates, and in-stream processing rates. The core of the model consists of a nonlinear regression equation describing the non-conservative transport of contaminants from point and non-point (or “diffuse”) sources on land to rivers and through the stream and river network.
