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Silver Lake is typically an oligotrophic-to-mesotrophic, soft-water, terminal lake in northwestern Wisconsin. A terminal lake is a closed-basin lake with surface-water inflows but no surface-water outflows to other water bodies. After several years with above-normal precipitation, very high water levels caused flooding of several buildings near the lake and erosion...

Whitefish Lake, which is officially named Bardon Lake, is an oligotrophic, soft-water seepage lake in northwestern Wisconsin, and classified by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources as an Outstanding Resource Water. Ongoing monitoring of the lake demonstrated that its water quality began to degrade (increased phosphorus and chlorophyll a concentrations)...

This report describes a modeling approach for studying how redox conditions evolve under the influence of a complex ground-water flow field. The distribution of redox conditions within a flow system is of interest because of the intrinsic susceptibility of an aquifer to redox-sensitive, naturally occurring contaminants - such as arsenic...

Studies of the effects of urbanization on stream ecosystems have usually focused on single metropolitan areas. Synthesis of the results of such studies have been useful in developing general conceptual models of the effects of urbanization, but the strength of such generalizations is enhanced by applying consistent study designs and...

Excessive loads of nutrients transported by tributary rivers have been linked to hypoxia in the Gulf of Mexico. Management efforts to reduce the hypoxic zone in the Gulf of Mexico and improve the water quality of rivers and streams could benefit from targeting nutrient reductions toward watersheds with the highest...

Over nearly two decades, the Water, Energy, and Biogeochemical Budgets (WEBB) small watershed research program of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has documented how water and solute fluxes, nutrient, carbon, and mercury dynamics, and weathering and sediment transport respond to natural and humancaused drivers, including climate, climate change, and atmospheric...

Coolwater streams, which are intermediate in character between coldwater “trout” streams and more diverse warmwater streams, occur widely in temperate regions but are poorly understood. We used modeled water temperature data and fish assemblage samples from 371 stream sites in Michigan and Wisconsin to define, describe, and map coolwater streams...

An analytic element ground-water-flow model was constructed to help understand the ground-water-flow system in the vicinity of the Ho-Chunk Nation communities of Indian Mission and Sand Pillow in Jackson County, Wisconsin. Data from interpretive reports, well-drillers' construction reports, and an exploratory augering program in 2003 indicate that sand and gravel...

In June 2008, heavy rain caused severe flooding across southern Wisconsin. The floods were aggravated by saturated soils that persisted from unusually wet antecedent conditions from a combination of floods in August 2007, more than 100 inches of snow in winter 2007-08, and moist conditions in spring 2008. The flooding...

The Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP) has sponsored research on environmental characteristics of aircraft and pavement deicers and anti-icers focusing primarily on biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) and aquatic toxicity of formulated products and individual chemical components of formulations. This report presents a background of issues leading to this research, objectives...

Excessive nutrient [phosphorus (P) and nitrogen (N)] input from point and nonpoint sources is frequently associated with degraded water quality in streams and rivers. Point-source discharges of nutrients are fairly constant and are controlled by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (USEPA) National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System. To reduce inputs from...

Butternut Lake is a 393-hectare, eutrophic to hypereutrophic lake in northcentral Wisconsin. After only minor improvements in water quality were observed following several actions taken to reduce the nutrient inputs to the lake, a detailed study was conducted from 2002 to 2007 by the U.S. Geological Survey to better understand...

A two-dimensional, steady-state ground-water-flow model of the shallow ground-water-flow system near the community of New Post, Sawyer County, Wis., was refined from an existing model of the area. Hydraulic-conductivity and recharge values were not changed from the existing model for the scenario simulations described in this report. Rather, the model...

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), in cooperation with local and other agencies, collects data at selected lakes throughout Wisconsin. These data, accumulated over many years, provide a data base for developing an improved understanding of the water quality of lakes. To make these data available to interested parties outside the...

The University of Wisconsin (UW)-Madison Discovery Farms (Discovery Farms) and UW-Platteville Pioneer Farm (Pioneer Farm) programs were created in 2000 to help Wisconsin farmers meet environmental and economic challenges. As a partner with each program, and in cooperation with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and the Sand County Foundation,...

Environmental managers are often faced with the task of designing strategies to accommodate development while minimizing adverse environmental impacts. Low-impact development (LID) is one such strategy that attempts to mitigate environmental degradation commonly associated with impervious surfaces. The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources,...

Hydraulic tomography is a powerful technique for characterizing heterogeneous hydrogeologic parameters. An explicit trade-off between characterization based on measurement misfit and subjective characterization using prior information is presented. We apply a Bayesian geostatistical inverse approach that is well suited to accommodate a flexible model with the level of complexity driven...

The history of overbank sedimentation in the vicinity of Halfway Creek Marsh near La Crosse, Wis., was examined during 2005?06 by the U.S. Geological Survey and University of Wisconsin?Madison as part of a broader study of sediment and nutrient loadings to the Upper Mississippi River bottomlands by the U.S. Environmental...

Mercury contamination in the environment is a global concern, especially in areas with abundant wetlands, such as south Florida. As the causal factors of this concern improve, scientists find that many factors that do not necessarily affect mercury concentrations, such as flooding and drying cycles, or changes to carbon and...

Recent technological improvements have increased the ability of street sweepers to remove sediment and other debris from street surfaces; the effect of these technological advancements on stormwater quality is largely unknown. The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the City of Madison and the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, evaluated...

This surface-water quality-assurance plan documents the standards, policies, and procedures used by the Wisconsin Water Science Center of the U.S. Geological Survey, Water Resources Discipline, for activities related to the collection, processing, storage, analysis, management, and publication of surface-water data. The roles and responsibilities of Water Science Center personnel in...

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), in cooperation with local and other agencies, collects data at selected lakes throughout Wisconsin. These data, accumulated over many years, provide a data base for developing an improved understanding of the water quality of lakes. To make these data available to interested parties outside the...

A two-dimensional, steady-state ground-water-flow model of Grindstone Creek, the New Post community, and the surrounding areas was developed using the analytic element computer code GFLOW. The parameter estimation code UCODE was used to obtain a best fit of the model to measured water levels and streamflows. The calibrated model was...

Nagawicka Lake is a 986-acre, usually mesotrophic, calcareous lake in southeastern Wisconsin. Because of concern over potential water-quality degradation of the lake associated with further development in its watershed, a study was conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey from 2002 to 2006 to describe the water quality and hydrology of...

Turbulent shear stress in the boundary layer of a natural river system largely controls the deposition and resuspension of sediment, as well as the longevity and effectiveness of granular-material caps used to cover and isolate contaminated sediments. This report documents measurements and calculations made in order to estimate shear stress...