Modeling tidal freshwater marsh sustainability in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta under a broad suite of potential future scenarios
Kathleen M. Swanson, Judith Z. Drexler, Christopher C. Fuller, David H. Schoellhamer
2015, San Francisco Estuary and Watershed Science (13) 1-21
In this paper, we report on the adaptation and application of a one-dimensional marsh surface elevation model, the Wetland Accretion Rate Model of Ecosystem Resilience (WARMER), to explore the conditions that lead to sustainable tidal freshwater marshes in the Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta. We defined marsh accretion parameters to encapsulate the...
Identifying a reliable blubber measurement site to assess body condition in a marine mammal with topographically variable blubber, the Pacific walrus
Shawn R. Noren, Mark S. Udevitz, Lisa Triggs, Jessa Paschke, Lisa Oland, Chadwick V. Jay
2015, Marine Mammal Science (31) 658-676
Pacific walruses may be unable to meet caloric requirements in the changing Arctic ecosystem, which could affect body condition and have population-level consequences. Body condition has historically been monitored by measuring blubber thickness over the xiphoid process (sternum). This may be an unreliable condition index because blubber at other sites...
Southern Great Plains Rapid Ecoregional Assessment: pre-assessment report
Timothy J. Assal, Cynthia P. Melcher, Natasha B. Carr
2015, Open-File Report 2015-1003
The purpose of the Pre-Assessment Report for the Southern Great Plains Rapid Ecoregional Assessment (REA) is to document the selection process for and final list of Conservation Elements, Change Agents, and Management Questions developed during Phase I. The overall goal of the REAs being conducted for the Bureau of Land...
Infectious diseases, parasites, and biological toxins in sea ducks
Tuula E. Hollmén, J. Christian Franson
2015, Book chapter, Ecology and conservation of North American sea ducks: Studies in Avian Biology 46
This chapter addresses disease agents in the broad sense, including viruses, bacteria, fungi, protozoan and helminth parasites, and biological toxins. Some of these agents are known to cause mortality in sea ducks, some are thought to be incidental findings, and the significance of others is yet poorly understood. Although the...
Incorporating induced seismicity in the 2014 United States National Seismic Hazard Model: results of the 2014 workshop and sensitivity studies
Mark D. Petersen, Charles S. Mueller, Morgan P. Moschetti, Susan M. Hoover, Justin L. Rubinstein, Andrea L. Llenos, Andrew J. Michael, William L. Ellsworth, Arthur F. McGarr, Austin A. Holland, John G. Anderson
2015, Open-File Report 2015-1070
The U.S. Geological Survey National Seismic Hazard Model for the conterminous United States was updated in 2014 to account for new methods, input models, and data necessary for assessing the seismic ground shaking hazard from natural (tectonic) earthquakes. The U.S. Geological Survey National Seismic Hazard Model project uses probabilistic seismic...
Estimates of natural streamflow at two streamgages on the Esopus Creek, New York, water years 1932 to 2012
Douglas A. Burns, Christopher L. Gazoorian
2015, Scientific Investigations Report 2015-5050
Streamflow in the Esopus Creek watershed is altered by two major watershed management activities carried out by the New York City Department of Environmental Protection as part of its responsibility to maintain a water supply for New York City: (1) diversion of water from the Schoharie Creek watershed to the...
Estimating concentrations of fine-grained and total suspended sediment from close-range remote sensing imagery
Adam R. Mosbrucker, Kurt R. Spicer, Tami S. Christianson, Mark A. Uhrich
2015, Conference Paper
Fluvial sediment, a vital surface water resource, is hazardous in excess. Suspended sediment, the most prevalent source of impairment of river systems, can adversely affect flood control, navigation, fisheries and aquatic ecosystems, recreation, and water supply (e.g., Rasmussen et al., 2009; Qu, 2014). Monitoring programs typically focus on suspended-sediment concentration...
The upper bound of abutment scour defined by selected laboratory and field data
Stephen Benedict, Andral W. Caldwell
2015, Conference Paper, Proceedings of the 5th Federal Interagency Hydrologic Modeling Conference and the 10th Federal Interagency Sedimentation Conference
The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the South Carolina Department of Transportation, conducted a field investigation of abutment scour in South Carolina and used that data to develop envelope curves defining the upper bound of abutment scour. To expand upon this previous work, an additional cooperative investigation was initiated...
Surrogate analysis and index developer (SAID) tool and real-time data dissemination utilities
Marian M. Domanski, Timothy D. Straub, Molly S. Wood, Mark N. Landers, Gary R. Wall, Steven J. Brady
2015, Conference Paper
The use of acoustic and other parameters as surrogates for suspended-sediment concentrations (SSC) in rivers has been successful in multiple applications across the Nation. Critical to advancing the operational use of surrogates are tools to process and evaluate the data along with the subsequent development of regression models from which...
Suspended sediment transport trough a large fluvial-tidal channel network
Scott Wright, Tara L. Morgan-King
2015, Conference Paper
The confluence of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers, CA, forms a large network of interconnected channels, referred to as the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta (the Delta). The Delta comprises the transition zone from the fluvial influences of the upstream rivers and tidal influences of San Francisco Bay downstream. Formerly an...
From mobile ADCP to high-resolution SSC: a cross-section calibration tool
Justin A. Boldt
2015, Conference Paper
Sediment is a major cause of stream impairment, and improved sediment monitoring is a crucial need. Point samples of suspended-sediment concentration (SSC) are often not enough to provide an understanding to answer critical questions in a changing environment. As technology has improved, there now exists the opportunity to obtain discrete...
Characterizing and simulating sediment loads and transport in the lower part of the San Antonio River Basin
J. Ryan Banta, Darwin J. Ockerman, Cassi Crow, Stephen P. Opsahl
2015, Conference Paper
This extended abstract is based on the U.S. Geological Survey Scientific Investigations Reports by Crow et al. (2013) and Banta and Ockerman (2014). Suspended sediment in rivers and streams can play an important role in ecological health of rivers and estuaries and consequently is an important issue for water-resource managers....
Estimating changes in riparian and channel features along the Trinity River downstream of Lewiston Dam, California, 1980 to 2011
Jennifer A. Curtis
2015, Conference Paper
Dam construction, flow diversion, and legacy landuse effects reduced the transport capacity, sediment supply, channel complexity and floodplain-connectivity along the Trinity River, CA below Lewiston Dam. This study documents the geomorphic evolution of the Trinity River Restoration Program’s intensively managed 65-km long restoration reach from 1980 to 2011. The nature...
The upper bound of Pier Scour defined by selected laboratory and field data
Stephen Benedict, Andral W. Caldwell
2015, Conference Paper
The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the South Carolina Department of Transportation, conducted several field investigations of pier scour in South Carolina (Benedict and Caldwell, 2006; Benedict and Caldwell, 2009) and used that data to develop envelope curves defining the upper bound of pier scour. To expand upon this...
Diel patterns and temporal trends in spawning activities of Robust Redhorse and River Redhorse in Georgia, assessed using passive acoustic monitoring
Carrie A. Straight, C. Rhett Jackson, Byron J. Freeman, Mary Freeman
2015, Transactions of the American Fisheries Society (144) 563-576
The conservation of imperiled species depends upon understanding threats to the species at each stage of its life history. In the case of many imperiled migratory fishes, understanding how timing and environmental influences affect reproductive behavior could provide managers with information critical for species conservation. We used passive acoustic recorders...
Evaluation and application of regional turbidity-sediment regression models in Virginia
Kenneth Hyer, John D. Jastram, Douglas Moyer, James S. Webber, Jeffrey G. Chanat
2015, Conference Paper
Conventional thinking has long held that turbidity-sediment surrogate-regression equations are site specific and that regression equations developed at a single monitoring station should not be applied to another station; however, few studies have evaluated this issue in a rigorous manner. If robust regional turbidity-sediment models can be developed successfully, their...
Large river bed sediment characterization with low-cost sidecan sonar: Case studies from two setting in the Colorado (Arizona) and Penobscot (Maine) Rivers
Daniel D. Buscombe, Paul E. Grams, Theodore S. Melis, Sean Smith
2015, Conference Paper, Proceedings of the 3rd joint federal interagency conference on sedimentation and hydrologic modeling
Mapping subaqueous riverbed sediment grain size across channels and in nearshore areas typically used by fish and benthic invertebrates is difficult where and when the water flow is too swift or deep to wade yet impractical to access with large boats and instruments. Fluvial characteristics can further constrain sampling options,...
Suspended-sediment concentrations, yields, total suspended solids, turbidity, and particle-size fractions for selected rivers in Minnesota, 2007 through 2011
Christopher A. Ellison, Brett E. Savage, Gregory D. Johnson
2015, Conference Paper, Proceedings of joint federal Interagency conference 2015
Excessive sediment transport in rivers causes problems for flood control, soil conservation, irrigation, aquatic health, and navigation, as well as transporting harmful contaminants like organic chemicals and eutrophication-causing nutrients. In Minnesota, more than 5,800 miles of streams are identified as impaired by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) due to...
Gully annealing by fluvially-sourced Aeolian sand: remote sensing investigations of connectivity along the Fluvial-Aeolian-hillslope continuum on the Colorado River
Joel B. Sankey, Amy E. East, Brian D. Collins, Joshua J. Caster
2015, Conference Paper, Proceedings of the Joint Federal Interagency Conference 2015
Processes contributing to development of ephemeral gully channels are of great importance to landscapes worldwide, and particularly in dryland regions where soil loss and land degradation from gully erosion pose long-term, land-management problems. Whereas gully formation has been relatively well studied, much less is known of the processes that anneal...
Inaccuracies in sediment budgets arising from estimations of tributary sediment inputs: an example from a monitoring network on the southern Colorado plateau
Ronald E. Griffiths, David J. Topping
2015, Conference Paper
Sediment budgets are an important tool for understanding how riverine ecosystems respond to perturbations. Changes in the quantity and grain-size distribution of sediment within river systems affect the channel morphology and related habitat resources. It is therefore important for resource managers to know if a channel reach is in a...
Geomorphic change in the Limitrophe reach of the Colorado River in response to the 2014 delta pulse flow, United States and Mexico
Erich R. Mueller, John C. Schmidt, David J. Topping, Paul E. Grams
2015, Conference Paper
A pulse of water was released from Morelos Dam into the dry streambed of the Colorado River in its former delta on March 23, 2014. Although small in relation to delta floods of a century ago, this was the first flow to reach the sea in nearly two decades. The...
Sublethal red tide toxin exposure in free-ranging manatees (Trichechus manatus) affects the immune system through reduced lymphocyte proliferation responses, inflammation, and oxidative stress
C.J. Walsh, M. Butawan, J. Yordy, R. Ball, M. de Witt, Robert K. Bonde
2015, Aquatic Toxicology (161) 73-84
The health of many Florida manatees (Trichechus manatus latirostris) is adversely affected by exposure to blooms of the toxic dinoflagellate, Karenia brevis. K. brevis blooms are common in manatee habitats of Florida's southwestern coast and produce a group of cyclic polyether toxins collectively referred to as red tide toxins, or...
Rhenium: a rare metal critical in modern transportation
David A. John
2015, Fact Sheet 2014-3101
Rhenium is a silvery-white, metallic element with an extremely high melting point (3,180 degrees Celsius) and a heat-stable crystalline structure, making it exceptionally resistant to heat and wear. Since the late 1980s, rhenium has been critical for superalloys used in turbine blades and in catalysts used to produce lead-free gasoline. One...
Fine-scale pathways used by adult sea lampreys during riverine spawning migrations
Christopher Holbrook, Roger A. Bergstedt, Noah S. Adams, Tyson Hatton, Robert L. McLaughlin
2015, Transactions of the American Fisheries Society (144) 549-562
Better knowledge of upstream migratory patterns of spawning Sea Lampreys Petromyzon marinus, an invasive species in the Great Lakes, is needed to improve trapping for population control and assessment. Although trapping of adult Sea Lampreys provides the basis for estimates of lake-wide abundance that are used to evaluate the Sea...
Tellurium: providing a bright future for solar energy
Richard J. Goldfarb
2015, Fact Sheet 2014-3077
Tellurium is one of the least common elements on Earth. Most rocks contain an average of about 3 parts per billion tellurium, making it rarer than the rare earth elements and eight times less abundant than gold. Grains of native tellurium appear in rocks as a brittle, silvery-white material, but...
