Sediment monitoring and streamflow modeling before and after a stream restoration in Rice Creek, Minnesota, 2010–2019
Joel T. Groten, Colin T. Livdahl, Stephen B. DeLong, J. William Lund, Jonathan M. Nelson, Erin N. Coenen, Jeffrey R. Ziegeweid, Matthew J. Kocian
2022, Scientific Investigations Report 2022-5004
The Rice Creek Watershed District (RCWD) cooperated with the U.S. Geological Survey to establish a 10-year suspended sediment and bedload monitoring and streamflow modeling study to evaluate the effects of two restored meander sections on middle Rice Creek in Arden Hills, Minnesota. The RCWD goals of this stream restoration were...
Functional wetland loss drives emerging risks to waterbird migration networks
J Patrick Donnelly, Johnnie N Moore, Michael L. Casazza, Shea P Coons
2022, Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution (10)
Migratory waterbirds (i.e., shorebirds, wading birds, and waterfowl) rely on a diffuse continental network of wetland habitats to support annual life cycle needs. Emerging threats of climate and land-use change raise new concerns over the sustainability of these habitat networks as water scarcity triggers cascading ecological effects impacting wetland habitat...
Seasonal and multi-year changes in CO2 degassing at Mammoth Mountain explained by solid-earth-driven fault valving
George E. Hilley, Jennifer L. Lewicki, Curtis W Baden
2022, Geophysical Research Letters (49)
Changes in CO2 emissions from volcanoes may evidence volcanic unrest. We use a multiyear time series of CO2 flux collected at the Horseshoe Lake Tree Kill area on Mammoth Mountain, CA, to understand processes that cause variations in flux from this system. Seasonal variations are systematically lowest during the winter months and...
Fire (plus) flood (equals) beach: Coastal response to an exceptional river sediment discharge event
Jonathan A. Warrick, Kilian Vos, Amy E. East, Sean Vitousek
2022, Scientific Reports (12) 3848
Wildfire and post-fire rainfall have resounding effects on hillslope processes and sediment yields of mountainous landscapes. Yet, it remains unclear how fire–flood sequences influence downstream coastal littoral systems. It is timely to examine terrestrial–coastal connections because climate change is increasing the frequency, size, and intensity of wildfires, altering precipitation rates,...
Response of Green Lake, Wisconsin, to changes in phosphorus loading, with special emphasis on near-surface total phosphorus concentrations and metalimnetic dissolved oxygen minima
Dale M. Robertson, Benjamin J. Siebers, Robert Ladwig, David P. Hamilton, Paul C. Reneau, Cory P. McDonald, Stephanie Prellwitz, Richard C. Lathrop
2022, Scientific Investigations Report 2022-5003
Green Lake is the deepest natural inland lake in Wisconsin, with a maximum depth of about 72 meters. In the early 1900s, the lake was believed to have very good water quality (low nutrient concentrations and good water clarity) with low dissolved oxygen (DO) concentrations occurring in only the deepest...
Circulation, mixing, and transport in nearshore Lake Erie in the vicinity of Villa Angela Beach and Euclid Creek, Cleveland, Ohio, June 10–12, 2019, and August 19–21, 2019
Justin A. Boldt, P. Ryan Jackson
2022, Scientific Investigations Report 2021-5122
Villa Angela Beach, on the Lake Erie lakeshore near Cleveland, Ohio, is just west of the mouth of Euclid Creek, a small, flashy stream that drains approximately 23 square miles and is susceptible to periodic contamination from combined sewer overflows (CSOs; 190 and 189 events in 2018 and 2019, respectively)....
Temporal variability in TiO2 engineered particle concentrations in rural Edisto River
Mahmudun Nabi, J. Wang, Celeste A. Journey, Paul M. Bradley, Mohammed Baalousha
2022, Chemosphere (297) 1-9
Titanium dioxide (TiO2) is widely used in engineered particles including engineered nanomaterial (ENM) and pigments, yet its occurrence, concentrations, temporal variability, and fate in natural environmental systems are poorly understood. For three years, we monitored TiO2 concentrations in a rural river basin (Edisto River, < 1% urban land cover) in South Carolina,...
Ten practical questions to improve data quality
Sarah E. McCord, Justin L. Welty, Jennifer Courtwright, Catherine Dillon, Alexander Laurence-Traynor, Sarah H. Burnett, Ericha M. Courtright, Gene Fults, Jason W. Karl, Justin W. Van Zee, Nicholas P. Webb, Craig E. Tweedie
2022, Rangelands (44) 17-28
High-quality rangeland data are critical to supporting adaptive management. However, concrete, cost-saving steps to ensure data quality are often poorly defined and understood.Data quality is more than data management. Ensuring data quality requires 1) clear communication among team members; 2) appropriate sample design; 3) training of data collectors, data managers, and...
Possible anthropogenic enhancement of precipitation in the Sahel-Sudan Savanna by remote agricultural irrigation
Yujin Zeng, Paul C. D. Milly, Elena Shevliakova, Sergey Malyshev, Marjolein von Huijgevoort, Krista A. Dunne
2022, Geophysical Research Letters (49)
The local climatic impacts of historical expansion of irrigation are substantial, but the distant impacts are poorly understood, and their governing mechanisms generally have not been rigorously analyzed. Our experiments with an earth-system model suggest that irrigation in the Middle East and South Asia may enhance rainfall in a large...
The Anthropocene as an event, not an epoch
Philip Gibbard, Michael J.C. Walker, Andrew M Bauer, Matthew Edgeworth, Lucy E. Edwards, Erle C. Ellis, Stanley C. Finney, Jacqueline L Gill, Mark Maslin, Dorothy Merritts, William F Ruddiman
2022, Journal of Quaternary Science (37) 3995-399
Over the course of the last decade the concept of the Anthropocene has become widely established within and beyond the geoscientific literature but its boundaries remain undefined. Formal definition of the Anthropocene as a chronostratigraphical series and geochronological epoch following the Holocene, at a fixed horizon and with a precise...
Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Units program — 2021 year in review
Dawn E. Childs
2022, Circular 1491
Established in 1935, the Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Units program is a unique cooperative partnership among State fish and wildlife agencies, universities, the Wildlife Management Institute, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the U.S. Geological Survey. Designed to meet the scientific needs of natural resource management agencies and...
Greater than the sum of its parts: Computationally flexible Bayesian hierarchical modeling
Devin S. Johnson, Brian M. Brost, Mevin Hooten
2022, Journal of Agricultural, Biological and Environmental Statistics (27) 400
We propose a multistage method for making inference at all levels of a Bayesian hierarchical model (BHM) using natural data partitions to increase efficiency by allowing computations to take place in parallel form using software that is most appropriate for each data partition. The full hierarchical model is then approximated...
Nocturnal light-specific temporal partitioning facilitates coexistence for a small mesopredator, the eastern spotted skunk
Courtney J. Marneweck, Cameron R. Forehand, Charles D. Waggy, Stephen N. Harris, Todd E. Katzner, David S. Jachowski
2022, Journal of Ethology 1-6
Eastern spotted skunks are of conservation concern where competition and predation are a possible cause of their decline. Using camera traps at a food subsidy, we investigated nocturnal temporal overlap of spotted skunks with co-occurring predators. Spotted skunks were more active during dark nights, when their activity overlapped with the...
Maximizing species distribution model performance when using historical occurrences and variables of varying persistency
Jason T. Bracken, Amelie Y. Davis, Katherine M. O’Donnell, William Barichivich, Susan C. Walls, Tereza Jezkova
2022, Ecosphere (13)
Occurrence data used to build species distribution models often include historical records from locations in which the species no longer exists. When these records are paired with contemporary environmental values that no longer represent the conditions the species experienced, the model creates false associations that hurt predictive performance. The extent...
Nitrogen enrichment during soil organic matter burning and molecular evidence of maillard reactions
William Bahureksa, Robert B. Young, Amy M. McKenna, Huan Chen, Kevin A. Thorn, Fernando L. Rosario-Ortiz, Thomas Borch
2022, Environmental Science and Technology (56) 4597-4609
Wildfires in forested watersheds dramatically alter stored and labile soil organic matter (SOM) pools and the export of dissolved organic matter (DOM). Ecosystem recovery after wildfires depends on soil microbial communities and revegetation and therefore is limited by the availability of nutrients,...
Linkages between land-use change and groundwater management foster long-term resilience of water supply in California
Nathan D. Van Schmidt, Tamara Wilson, Ruth Langridge
2022, Journal of Hydrology: Regional Studies (40)
Study RegionWe created a 270-m coupled model of land-use and groundwater conditions, LUCAS-W[ater], for California’s Central Coast. This groundwater-dependent region is undergoing a dramatic reorganization of groundwater management under California’s 2014 Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA).Study FocusUnderstanding land-use and...
Advanced distributed acoustic sensing vertical seismic profile imaging of an Alaska North Slope gas hydrate field
Cullen Young, Jeffrey Shragge, Whitney Shultz, Seth S. Haines, Can Oren, James Simmons, Timothy Collett
2022, Journal of Energy and Fuels (36) 3481-3495
Gas hydrates are found in significant quantities on the North Slope of Alaska in subpermafrost sand units and intermixed in lower portions of permafrost within the hydrate stability window. While conventional surface seismic data and established imaging methods can indicate the presence of gas hydrate reservoirs,...
Geochemical and palaeomagnetic characteristics of the Vestfold Hills mafic dykes in the Prydz Bay region: implications of a Paleoproterozoic connection between East Antarctica and Proto-India
Manoj K. Pandit, Anthony Francis Pivarunas, Joseph G Meert
2022, Geological Society, London, Special Publications (518) 149-171
The Archean age granite gneiss basement along the Prydz Bay coastline in East Antarctica hosts north–south-, east–west-, NE–SW- and NW–SE-trending mafic dyke swarms in the Vestfold Hills region that intruded between 2420 and 1250 Ma. The dyke trends do not show a direct correlation with the dyke geochemistry but can...
Idaho and Landsat
U.S. Geological Survey
2022, Fact Sheet 2022-3013
Idaho may be popular for potatoes, but the State’s richness also lies in its scenery and natural resources. Its terrain varies from mountains, rivers, and waterfalls to forests, volcanic rock, and hot springs. A growing population gives Idaho even more reason to use the best information available to serve the...
The effects of requested flows for native fish on sediment dynamics, geomorphology, and riparian vegetation for the Green River in Canyonlands National Park, Utah
Paul E. Grams, Jonathan M. Friedman, David J. Dean, David J. Topping
2022, Open-File Report 2022-1019
Releases of water from Flaming Gorge Dam together with climate-related variations in runoff determine the streamflow regime of the Green River, which affects the physical characteristics of the channel and riparian ecosystem of the Green River corridor in Canyonlands National Park. The dam has decreased peak streamflows and raised base...
Virtual training prepared for the former Afghanistan Ministry of Energy and Water—Streamgaging, fluvial sediment sampling, bathymetry, and streamflow and sediment modeling
Joel T. Groten, Joshua F. Valder, Brenda K. Densmore, Logan W. Neal, Justin Krahulik, Thomas J. Mack
2022, Fact Sheet 2022-3014
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) created a virtual training series for the Afghanistan Ministry of Energy and Water (MEW), now known as the National Water Affairs Regulation Authority (NWARA), to provide critical hydrological training as an alternative to an in-person training. The USGS was scheduled to provide in-person surface-water training...
Woody plant encroachment of grassland and the reversibility of shrub dominance: Erosion, fire, and feedback processes
Junran Li, Sujith Ravi, Guan Wang, R. Scott Van Pelt, Thomas E. Gill, Joel B. Sankey
2022, Ecosphere (13)
Many grass-dominated ecosystems in dryland regions have experienced increasing woody plant density and abundance during the past century. In many cases, this process has led to land degradation and declines in ecosystem functions. An example is the Chihuahuan Desert in the southwestern United States, which experienced different stages of shrub...
Porewater chemistry of Louisiana marshes with contrasting salinities and its implications for coastal acidification
Songjie He, Kanchan Maiti, Christopher Swarzenski, Tracy Elsey-Quirk, Gina Groseclose, Dubravko Justic
2022, Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science (268)
Dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) and total alkalinity (TA) are fundamental components of carbonate systems that control pH and buffering capacity of the receiving water body. Three coastal marshes with contrasting salinities in Barataria Basin, Louisiana, USA, were sampled to understand seasonal changes in porewater carbonate chemistry and its impact on...
Patterns of parental care and movement in divided broods of golden-winged warblers
Sean M. Peterson, Henry M. Streby, Gunnar R. Kramer, Jared M. Feura, David E. Andersen
2022, Journal of Avian Biology (2022)
Post-fledging brood division is a poorly understood, yet widespread suite of avian behaviours that includes both division of parental care and spatial division of a brood. For most species, the differences in parental care between adult males and females and the behavioural mechanisms explaining spatial patterns...
Very low frequency earthquakes in between the seismogenic and tremor zones in Cascadia?
Wenyuan Fan, Andrew J. Barbour, Jeffrey J. McGuire, Yihe Huang, Guoqing Lin, Elizabeth S. Cochran, Ryo Okuwaki
2022, AGU Advances (3)
Megathrust earthquakes and their associated tsunamis cause some of the worst natural disasters. In addition to earthquakes, a wide range of slip behaviors are present at subduction zones, including slow earthquakes that span multiple orders of spatial and temporal scales. Understanding these events may shed light on...
