Effects of increased discharge on spawning and age-0 recruitment of rainbow trout in the Colorado River at Lees Ferry, Arizona
Luke A. Avery, Josh Korman, William R. Persons
2015, North American Journal of Fisheries Management (35) 671-680
Negative interactions of Rainbow Trout Oncorhynchus mykiss with endangered Humpback Chub Gila cypha pose challenges to the operation of Glen Canyon Dam (GCD) to manage for both species in the Colorado River. Operations to enhance the Rainbow Trout tailwater fishery may lead to an increase in downstream movement of the trout to areas where...
Evaluating the importance of characterizing soil structure and horizons in parameterizing a hydrologic process model
Benjamin B. Mirus
2015, Hydrological Processes (29) 4611-4623
Incorporating the influence of soil structure and horizons into parameterizations of distributed surface water/groundwater models remains a challenge. Often, only a single soil unit is employed, and soil-hydraulic properties are assigned based on textural classification, without evaluating the potential impact of these simplifications. This study uses a distributed physics-based model...
Evaluation of habitat suitability index models by global sensitivity and uncertainty analyses: a case study for submerged aquatic vegetation
Zuzanna Zajac, Bradley Stith, Andrea C. Bowling, Catherine A. Langtimm, Eric D. Swain
2015, Ecology and Evolution (5) 2503-2517
Habitat suitability index (HSI) models are commonly used to predict habitat quality and species distributions and are used to develop biological surveys, assess reserve and management priorities, and anticipate possible change under different management or climate change scenarios. Important management decisions may be based on model results, often without a...
Effects of high salinity wastewater discharges on unionid mussels in the Allegheny River, Pennsylvania
Kathleen A. Patnode, Elizabeth A. Hittle, Robert Anderson, Lora Zimmerman, John W. Fulton
2015, Journal of Fish and Wildlife Management (6) 55-70
We examined the effect of high salinity wastewater (brine) from oil and natural gas drilling on freshwater mussels in the Allegheny River, Pennsylvania, during 2012. Mussel cages (N = 5 per site) were deployed at two sites upstream and four sites downstream of a brine treatment facility on the Allegheny...
Source, use and disposition of freshwater in Puerto Rico, 2010
Wanda L. Molina
2015, Fact Sheet 2015-3044
Introduction Water diverted from streams and pumped from wells constitutes the main source of water for the 78 municipios of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. A better understanding of water-use patterns is needed, particularly regarding the amount of water used, where and how this water is used and disposed, and how...
Influence of a chlor-alkali superfund site on mercury bioaccumulation in periphyton and low-trophic level fauna
Kate L. Buckman, Mark C. Marvin-DiPasquale, Vivien F. Taylor, Ann T. Chalmers, Hannah J. Broadley, Jennifer L. Agee, Brian P. Jackson, Celia Y. Chen
2015, Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (34) 1649-1658
In Berlin, New Hampshire, USA, the Androscoggin River flows adjacent to a former chlor-alkali facility that is a US Environmental Protection Agency Superfund site and source of mercury (Hg) to the river. The present study was conducted to determine the fate and bioaccumulation of methylmercury (MeHg) to lower trophic-level taxa...
Water-quality conditions and suspended-sediment transport in the Wilson and Trask Rivers, northwestern Oregon, water years 2012–14
Steven Sobieszczyk, Heather M. Bragg, Mark A. Uhrich
2015, Scientific Investigations Report 2015-5109
In October 2011, the U.S. Geological Survey began investigating and monitoring water-quality conditions and suspended-sediment transport in the Wilson and Trask Rivers, northwestern Oregon. Water temperature, specific conductance, turbidity, and dissolved oxygen were measured every 15–30 minutes in both streams using real-time instream water-quality monitors. In conjunction with the...
Groundwater levels, trends, and relations to pumping in the Bureau of Reclamation Klamath Project, Oregon and California
Marshall W. Gannett, Katherine H. Breen
2015, Open-File Report 2015-1145
The use of groundwater to supplement surface-water supplies for the Bureau of Reclamation Klamath Project in the upper Klamath Basin of Oregon and California markedly increased between 2000 and 2014. Pre-2001 groundwater pumping in the area where most of this increase occurred is estimated to have been about 28,600...
Responses to water depth and clipping of twenty−three plant species in an Indian monsoonal wetland
Beth A. Middleton, Arnold van der Valk, Craig B. Davis
2015, Aquatic Botany (126) 38-47
Responses of species to disturbances give insights into how species might respond to future wetland changes. In this study, species of monsoonal wetlands belonging to various functional types (graminoid and non−graminoid emergents, submersed aquatic, floating−leaved aquatic) varied in their growth responses to water depth and harvesting. We tested the effects...
Assessment of existing and potential landslide hazards resulting from the April 25, 2015 Gorkha, Nepal earthquake sequence
Brian D. Collins, Randall W. Jibson
2015, Open-File Report 2015-1142
Introduction On April 25, 2015, a large (M7.8) earthquake shook much of central Nepal and was followed by a series of M>6 aftershocks, including a M7.3 event on May 12, 2015. This earthquake and aftershocks, referred to as the “Gorkha earthquake sequence,” caused thousands of fatalities, damaged and destroyed entire villages,...
Larger aftershocks happen farther away: nonseparability of magnitude and spatial distributions of aftershocks
Nicholas van der Elst, Bruce E. Shaw
2015, Geophysical Research Letters (42) 5771-5778
Aftershocks may be driven by stress concentrations left by the main shock rupture or by elastic stress transfer to adjacent fault sections or strands. Aftershocks that occur within the initial rupture may be limited in size, because the scale of the stress concentrations should be smaller than the primary rupture...
Approaches to modeling landscape-scale drought-induced forest mortality
Eric J. Gustafson, Douglas J. Shinneman
2015, Book chapter, Simulation modeling of forest landscape disturbances
Drought stress is an important cause of tree mortality in forests, and drought-induced disturbance events are projected to become more common in the future due to climate change. Landscape Disturbance and Succession Models (LDSM) are becoming widely used to project climate change impacts on forests, including potential interactions with...
Application of a putative alarm cue hastens the arrival of invasive sea lamprey (Petromyzon marinus) at a trapping location
John B. Hume, Trevor D. Meckley, Nicholas S. Johnson, Thomas M Luhring, Michael J Siefkes, C. Michael Wagner
2015, Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences (72) 1799-1806
The sea lamprey Petromyzon marinus is an invasive pest in the Laurentian Great Lakes basin, threatening the persistence of important commercial and recreational fisheries. There is substantial interest in developing effective trapping practices via the application of behavior-modifying semiochemicals (odors). Here we report on the effectiveness of utilizing repellent and attractant odors...
Simulating forest landscape disturbances as coupled human and natural systems
Michael Wimberly, Terry L. Sohl, Zhihua Liu, Aashis Lamsal
2015, Book chapter
Anthropogenic disturbances resulting from human land use affect forest landscapes over a range of spatial and temporal scales, with diverse influences on vegetation patterns and dynamics. These processes fall within the scope of the coupled human and natural systems (CHANS) concept, which has emerged as an important framework for understanding...
Lithostratigraphic, borehole-geophysical, hydrogeologic, and hydrochemical data from the East Bay Plain, Alameda County, California
Michelle Sneed, Patricia Orlando, James W. Borchers, Rhett R. Everett, Michael Solt, Mary McGann, Heather Lowers, Shannon Mahan
2015, Data Series 890
The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the East Bay Municipal Utility District, carried out an investigation of aquifer-system deformation associated with groundwater-level changes at the Bayside Groundwater Project near the modern San Francisco Bay shore in San Lorenzo, California. As a part of the Bayside Groundwater Project, East...
Geologic framework of the Alaska Peninsula, southwest Alaska, and the Alaska Peninsula terrane
Frederic H. Wilson, Robert L. Detterman, Gregory D. DuBois
2015, Bulletin 1969-B
The Alaska Peninsula is composed of the late Paleozoic to Quaternary sedimentary, igneous, and minor metamorphic rocks that record the history of a number of magmatic arcs. These magmatic arcs include an unnamed Late Triassic(?) and Early Jurassic island arc, the early Cenozoic Meshik arc, and the late Cenozoic Aleutian...
U.S. recreational water quality criteria: a vision for the future
Roger S. Fujioka, Helena M. Solo-Gabriele, Muruleedhara N. Byappanahalli, Marek Kirs
2015, International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (7) 7752-7776
This manuscript evaluates the U.S. Recreational Water Quality Criteria (RWQC) of 2012, based upon discussions during a conference held 11–13 March 2013, in Honolulu, Hawaii. The RWQC of 2012 did not meet expectations among the research community because key recommended studies were not completed, new data to assess risks to...
Updated numerical model with uncertainty assessment of 1950-56 drought conditions on brackish-water movement within the Edwards aquifer, San Antonio, Texas
Linzy K. Brakefield, Jeremy T. White, Natalie A. Houston, Jonathan V. Thomas
2015, Scientific Investigations Report 2015-5081
In 2010, the U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the San Antonio Water System, began a study to assess the brackish-water movement within the Edwards aquifer (more specifically the potential for brackish-water encroachment into wells near the interface between the freshwater and brackish-water transition zones, referred to in this report...
From bacteria to elephants: Effects of land-use legacies on biodiversity and ecosystem structure in the Serengeti-Mara ecosystem: Chapter 8
Louis V. Verchot, Naomi L. Ward, Jayne Belnap, Deborah Bossio, Michael Coughenour, John Gibson, Olivier Hanotte, Andrew N. Muchiru, Susan L. Phillips, Blaire Steven, Diana H. Wall, Robin S. Reid
2015, Book chapter, Serengeti IV: Sustaining biodiversity in a coupled human-natural system
Generally, ecological research has considered the aboveground and belowground components of ecosystems separately. Consequently, frameworks for integrating the two components are not well developed. Integrating the microbial components into ecosystem ecology requires different approaches from those offered by plant ecology, partly because of the scales at which microbial processes operate...
Richness, diversity, and similarity of arthropod prey consumed by a community of Hawaiian forest birds.
Paul C. Banko, Robert W. Peck, Kevin W. Brinck, David L. Leonard
2015, Technical Report HCSU-066
We evaluated the diet richness, diversity, and similarity of a community of seven endemic and two introduced passerine birds by analyzing the composition of arthropod prey in fecal samples collected during 1994–1998 at Hakalau Forest National Wildlife Refuge, Hawai‘i Island. Most prey fragments were identified to order, but we also...
Performance of an anaerobic, static bed, fixed film bioreactor for chlorinated solvent treatment
Michelle M. Lorah, Charles Walker, Duane Graves
2015, Biodegradation (26) 341-357
Anaerobic, fixed film, bioreactors bioaugmented with a dechlorinating microbial consortium were evaluated as a potential technology for cost effective, sustainable, and reliable treatment of mixed chlorinated ethanes and ethenes in groundwater from a large groundwater recovery system. Bench- and pilot-scale testing at about 3 and 13,500 L, respectively, demonstrated that...
Delineation of marsh types from Corpus Christi Bay, Texas, to Perdido Bay, Alabama, in 2010
Nicholas M. Enwright, Stephen B. Hartley, Brady R. Couvillion, Michael G. Brasher, Jenneke M. Visser, Michael K. Mitchell, Bart M. Ballard, Mark W. Parr, Barry C. Wilson
2015, Scientific Investigations Map 3336
Coastal zone managers and researchers often require detailed information regarding emergent marsh vegetation types (that is, fresh, intermediate, brackish, and saline) for modeling habitat capacities and needs of marsh dependent taxa (such as waterfowl and alligator). Detailed information on the extent and distribution of emergent marsh vegetation types throughout the...
Causes of mortality in green turtles from Hawaii and the insular Pacific exclusive of fibropapillomatosis
Thierry M. Work, George H. Balazs, Tammy M. Summers, Jessy R. Hapdei, Alden P. Tagarino
2015, Diseases of Aquatic Organisms (115) 103-110
Fibropapillomatosis (FP) comprises a majority of green turtle stranding in Hawaii; however, green turtles in the Pacific are also susceptible to non-FP related causes of death. We present here necropsy findings from 230 free-ranging green turtles originating from Hawaii, the Mariana archipelago, Palmyra Atoll, American Samoa, and Johnston Atoll that...
Surface melt dominates Alaska glacier mass balance
Larsen Chris F, E Burgess, A.A. Arendt, Shad O’Neel, A. J. Johnson, C. Kienholz
2015, Geophysical Research Letters (42) 5902-5908
Mountain glaciers comprise a small and widely distributed fraction of the world's terrestrial ice, yet their rapid losses presently drive a large percentage of the cryosphere's contribution to sea level rise. Regional mass balance assessments are challenging over large glacier populations due to remote and rugged geography, variable response of...
Coastal plain pond water quality and mercury contend of biota of the Long Island Central Pine Barrens and Mashomack Preserve: Effects of atmospheric deposition and human development
Gregory B. Lawrence, Jason Siemion, Oksana P. Lane
2015, Report 15-01
Pine barrens are considered an imperiled ecosystem in the northeastern U.S. The Suffolk County Pine Barrens, once the second largest in the Northeast, were substantially reduced and fragmented by development during the 20th century. The coastal plain ponds being considered in this study occur in central Suffolk County within the...
