U.S. Geological Survey Groundwater Climate Response Network—2023
Jason Fine, Rodney Caldwell
2024, General Information Product 243
As of October 2023, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) operated more than 660 sites across the United States and its territories as part of the Groundwater Climate Response Network (CRN). The CRN is comprised of wells and springs selected to monitor the effects of climate variability, such as droughts, on...
Advancing sustainable groundwater management with a hydro-economic system model: Investigations in the Harney Basin, Oregon
William K. Jaeger, John M. Antle, Stephen B. Gingerich, Daniel Bigelow
2024, Water Resources Research (60)
Groundwater resources frequently trend toward unsustainable levels because, absent effective institutions, individual water users generally act independently without considering the impacts on other users. Hydro-economic models (HEMs) of human-natural systems can play a positive role toward successful groundwater management by yielding valuable knowledge and insight. The current study explores how...
Evaluating spatially explicit management alternatives for an invasive species in a riverine network
Brielle K. Thompson, Julian D. Olden, Sarah J. Converse
2024, NeoBiota (96) 151-172
Invasive species have substantial ecological and economic costs and removing them can require large investments by management agencies. Optimal spatial allocation of removal effort is critical for efficient and effective management of invasive species. Using a series of ecologically informed model simulations, we evaluated and compared different spatially explicit removal...
A synthesis of the characteristics and drivers of introduced fishes in prairie streams: Can we manage introduced harmful fishes in these dynamic environments?
A. A. Coulter, Michael J. Moore, Jimena Golcher-Benavides, Frank J. Rahel, Annika W. Walters, Shannon K. Brewer, Mark L. Wildhaber
2024, Biological Invasions (26) 4011-4033
Prairie streams of North America support native fishes that are adapted to the dynamic environment that characterizes these ecologically and economically important ecosystems. However, prairie streams have been altered by landscape changes that may affect the proportions of native and introduced species in fish communities. Herein, we investigate drivers of...
Simple stated preference questions can enhance transdisciplinary projects: Linking perceived risks with willingness to spray and pay
Aaron Joey Enriquez, Kevin Berry, Maria del Pilar Fernandez, Nichar Gregory, Kacey C. Ernst, Mary H. Hayden, Maria A. Diuk-Wasser
2024, Environmental and Resource Economics (88) 81-124
Transdisciplinary projects can uncover crucial insights on people’s past and future risk-mitigation behavior. We focus on a novel risk context: increasing health threats from ticks on Staten Island, a New York City borough where the combination of high population density and extensive park systems and green spaces has resulted in...
Urban tick exposure on Staten Island is higher in pet owners
Noriko Tamari, Kacey C. Ernst, Aaron Joey Enriquez, Maria A. Diuk-Wasser, Maria P. Fernandez, Kevin Berry, Mary H. Hayden
2024, PLoS ONE (19)
Over the past decade, Lyme and other tick-borne diseases have expanded into urban areas, including Staten Island, New York. While Lyme disease is often researched with a focus on human risk, domestic pets are also at risk of contracting the disease. The present study aims to describe differences in tick...
Field trials of an autonomous eDNA sampler in lotic waters
Scott D. George, Adam Sepulveda, Patrick Ross Hutchins, David S. Pilliod, Katy E. Klymus, Austen Thomas, Ben Augustine, Chany C Huddleston Adrianza, Devin Nicole Jones-Slobodian, Jacob R. Williams, Eric Leinonen
2024, Environmental Science & Technology (58) 20942-20953
Environmental DNA (eDNA) analysis has become a transformative technology, but sample collection methods lack standardization and sampling at effective frequencies requires considerable field effort. Autonomous eDNA samplers that can sample water at high frequencies offer potential solutions to these problems. We present results from four case studies using a prototype...
Federal lands greenhouse gas emissions and sequestration in the United States: Estimates for 2005–22
Matthew D. Merrill, Benjamin M. Sleeter, Philip A. Freeman
2024, Scientific Investigations Report 2024-5103
In 2016, the Secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior requested that the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) produce a publicly available and annually updated database of estimated greenhouse gas emissions associated with the extraction and use of fossil fuels from Federal lands. The first report in this series included...
Assessing predictions from optimal egg theory for an ectotherm relative to habitat duration
Jon M. Davenport, Andrew Feltmann, LeeAnn Fishback, Blake R. Hossack
2024, Wildlife Letters (2) 124-130
Optimal egg size theory predicts females must balance investment per offspring to maximize fitness based on environmental quality. In wetlands, environmental quality can be duration of water and predator presence. Ectotherms using habitats that dry or contain predators are likely under selection to optimize offspring production. We measured reproductive output...
The EnMAP spaceborne imaging spectroscopy mission: Initial scientific results two years after launch
Sabine Chabrillat, Saskia Foerster, Karl Segl, Alison Beamish, Maximilian Brell, Saeid Asadzadeh, Robert Milewski, Kathrin J. Ward, Arlena Brosinsky, Katrin Koch, Daniel Scheffler, Stephane Guillaso, Alexander Kokhanovsky, Sigrid Roessner, Luis Guanter, Hermann Kauffman, Nicole Pinnel, Emiliano Carmona, Tobias Storch, Tobias Hank, Katja Berger, Mathias Wocher, Patrick Hostert, Sebastian van der Linden, Akpona Okujeni, Andreas Janz, Benjamin Jakimow, Astrid Bracher, Mariana Soppa, L.M.A. Alvarado, H. Buddenbaum, Birgit Heim, Uta Heiden, Jose M. Moreno, Cindy Ong, Niklas Bohn, Robert O. Green, Martin Bachmann, Raymond F. Kokaly, Martin Schodlok, Thomas H. Painter, Ferran Gascon, Fabrizia Buongiorno, Matti Mottus, Vittorio Ernesto Brando, Hannes Feilhauer, Matthias Betz, Simon Baur, Rupert Feckl, Anke Schickling, Vera Krieger, Michael Bock, Laura La Porta, Sebastian Fischer
2024, Remote Sensing of Environment (315)
Imaging spectroscopy has been a recognized and established remote sensing technology since the 1980s, mainly using airborne and field-based platforms to identify and quantify key bio- and geo-chemical surface and atmospheric compounds, based on characteristic spectral reflectance features in the visible-near infrared (VNIR) and short-wave infrared (SWIR). Spaceborne missions, a...
Reduced injection rates and shallower depths mitigated induced seismicity in Oklahoma
Robert J. Skoumal, Andrew J. Barbour, Justin L. Rubenstein, Margaret Elizabeth Glasgow
2024, The Seismic Record (4) 279-287
The proximity of wastewater disposal to the Precambrian basement is a critical factor influencing induced earthquake rates in the Central United States, but the impact of reducing injection depths has not been widely demonstrated. Beginning in 2015, state regulatory efforts in Oklahoma and Kansas mandated that wells injecting into the...
Water-quality comparisons in the Greater Mooses Tooth unit of the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska, 2010 and 2023
Brent M. Hall
2024, Scientific Investigations Report 2024-5098
The United States has long held oil reserves in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska (NPR–A), but oil production did not begin until 2015. The waters of the NPR–A are generally considered “pristine,” but water quality has not been characterized temporally or spatially in a rigorous manner. In 2010 and...
Before the fire: Predicting burn severity and potential post-fire debris-flow hazards to Colorado River Cutthroat Trout (Oncorhynchus clarkii pleuriticus) conservation populations
Adam Gerhard Wells, Charles Yackulic, Jaime Kostelnik, Andrew R. Bock, Robert E. Zuellig, Daren M. Carlisle, James Roberts, Kevin B. Rogers, Seth M. Munson
2024, International Journal of Wildland Fire (33)
BackgroundColorado River Cutthroat Trout (CRCT; Oncorhynchus clarkii pleuriticus) conservation populations may be at risk from wildfire and post-fire debris flows hazards.AimTo predict burn severity and potential post-fire debris flow hazard classifications to CRCT conservation populations before wildfires occur.MethodsWe used remote sensing, spatial analyses, and machine learning to model 28 wildfire incidents...
Triggering the 2022 eruption of Mauna Loa
Kendra J. Lynn, Drew T. Downs, Frank A. Trusdell, Penny E. Wieser, Berenise Rangel, Baylee Rose McDade, Alicia J. Hotovec-Ellis, Ninfa Lucia Bennington, Kyle R. Anderson, Dawn Catherine Sweeney Ruth, Charlotte DeVitre, Andria P. Ellis, Patricia A. Nadeau, Laura E. Clor, Peter J. Kelly, Peter Dotray, Jefferson Chang
2024, Nature Communications (15)
Distinguishing periods of intermittent unrest from the run-up to eruption is a major challenge at volcanoes around the globe. Comparing multidisciplinary monitoring data with mineral chemistry that records the physical and spatio-temporal evolution of magmas fundamentally advances our ability to forecast eruptions. The recent eruption of Mauna Loa, Earth’s largest...
Vaccination of endangered wildlife as a conservation tool: Hindsights and new horizons in the pandemic era
Frances Gulland, Michelle Barbieri, Sarah Cleaveland, Martin Gilbert, Ailsa J. Hall, Tonie E. Rocke
2024, Biological Conservation (300)
Vaccines are an established conservation tool that can reduce the threat of infectious disease in endangered wildlife populations. Vaccines exist for many infectious pathogens, and at a time of rapid technological advances in vaccinology, developing vaccines and vaccination programs for free-living endangered wildlife could help efforts to prevent extinctions from...
Post Carr Fire bioassessment data report, Whiskeytown National Recreation Area, Shasta County, California
Marissa L. Wulff, Larry R. Brown, Veronica L. Violette
2024, Data Report 1201
The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the National Park Service, analyzed water and sediment chemistry, benthic macroinvertebrate assemblages, fish and amphibian assemblages, fish and invertebrate tissues, instream habitat characteristics, and sediment heterogeneity at 10 stream sites within Whiskeytown National Recreation Area, Shasta County, California, during August 2020, 2 years...
A methodology to estimate CO2 and energy gas storage resources in depleted conventional gas reservoirs
Matthew M. Jones, Ashton M. Wiens, Marc L. Buursink, Sean T. Brennan, Philip A. Freeman, Brian A. Varela, Joao S. Gallotti, Peter D. Warwick
2024, Conference Paper
Depleted hydrocarbon reservoirs are subsurface geological structures capable of sequestering vast quantities of carbon dioxide (CO2) as well as storing other energy gases for later usage, such as natural gas, and potentially hydrogen (H2). Here we outline a methodology to quantify multi-gas storage resources in depleted conventional gas reservoirs for...
Detection probabilities of Flathead Catfish in small Kansas impoundments
Brett T. Miller, Ben C. Neely, Connor J. Chance-Ossowski, Micah J. Waters, Vanessa Salazar, Lucas K. Kowalewski, Nicholas W. Kramer, Seth A. Lundgren, Jonathan J. Spurgeon
2024, Journal of Fish and Wildlife Management (15) 530-536
A primary challenge of Flathead Catfish Pylodictis olivaris management is uncertainty associated with sampling strategies and resulting ambiguity in population-level information. Assessment of impoundment and environmental conditions that affect detection probability may aid in reducing sample variance and benefit inferences regarding changes to Flathead Catfish populations. We sampled eight small impoundments in...
Annual grass invasions and wildfire deplete ecosystem carbon storage by >50% to resistant base levels
Toby Matthew Maxwell, Harold E. Quicke, Samuel J. Price, Matthew J. Germino
2024, Nature Communications, Earth & Environment (5)
Ecological disturbance can affect carbon storage and stability and is a key consideration for managing lands to preserve or increase ecosystem carbon to ameliorate the global greenhouse gas problem. Dryland soils are massive carbon reservoirs that are increasingly impacted by species invasions and altered fire regimes, including the exotic-grass-fire cycle...
Trimming the UCERF3-TD logic tree: Model order reduction for an earthquake rupture forecast considering loss exceedance
Keith Porter, Kevin R. Milner, Edward H. Field
2024, Earthquake Spectra (41) 636-653
The Uniform California Earthquake Rupture Forecast version 3-Time Dependent depicts California’s seismic faults and their activity. Its logic tree has 5760 leaves. Considering 30 more model combinations related to ground motion produces 172,800 distinct models representing so-called epistemic uncertainties. To calculate risk to a portfolio of buildings, one also considers...
Length in assessing status of freshwater fish populations: A review
Leandro E. Miranda, H.G. Funk, M. Palmieri, J.D. Stafford, M.E. Nichols
2024, North American Journal of Fisheries Management (44) 1092-1110
ObjectiveEffective policy formulation regarding the conservation of freshwater fish necessitates an understanding of water‐specific prevailing conditions and trends. Assessing fish populations in inland waters is difficult and expensive because there are many independent systems that need to be evaluated. Therefore, numerous freshwater systems are beset by insufficient data...
A decade of shaking in the Garden City: The dynamics of preparedness, perceptions, and beliefs in Canterbury, New Zealand, and implications for earthquake information
Julia S. Becker, Emma E. Hudson-Doyle, Lauren Vinnell, Sara K. McBride, Douglas Paton, David A. Johnston
2024, Frontiers Communication - Disaster Communications (9)
This study explored earthquake preparedness over time - before, during, and 10 years after the Canterbury Earthquake Sequence (CES) in Aotearoa New Zealand (NZ). Surveys of Canterbury residents were conducted in 2009, 2013 and again in 2021, using variables derived from Community Engagement Theory (CET). The surveys measured earthquake...
Inset groundwater-flow models for the Cache and Grand Prairie Critical Groundwater Areas, northeastern Arkansas
Jonathan P. Traylor, Leslie L. Duncan, Andrew T. Leaf, Alec R. Weisser, Benjamin J. Dietsch, Moussa Guira
2024, Scientific Investigations Report 2024-5088
The water resources in the Mississippi alluvial plain, located in parts of Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Arkansas, supports a multibillion-dollar agricultural industry that relies heavily on pumping of groundwater for irrigation of crops and aquaculture. The primary source of groundwater for agricultural-related pumping is the Mississippi River Valley...
Connectivity patterns between floodplain lakes and neighboring streams in the historical floodplain of the Lower Mississippi River
Hafez Ahmad, Leandro E. Miranda, Corey Garland Dunn, Melanie R. Boudreau, Michael E. Colvin
2024, Ecological Indicators (169)
Hydrologic connectivity, the network of water pathways linking aquatic habitats, is vital for the exchange of organisms and abiotic materials between rivers and adjacent waterbodies. This study quantified hydrologic connectivity for 1,283 lakes in the Lower Mississippi River floodplain using satellite imagery, streamgauge data, and geospatial information. We aimed to...
Peak streamflow trends in South Dakota and their relation to changes in climate, water years 1921–2020
Nancy A. Barth, Steven K. Sando
2024, Scientific Investigations Report 2023-5064-I
Peak-flow (flood) frequency analysis is essential to water-resources management applications, including the design of critical infrastructure such as bridges and culverts, and floodplain mapping. Federal guidelines for performing peak-flow flood frequency analyses are presented in a U.S. Geological Survey Techniques and Methods Report known as Bulletin 17C. A basic assumption...
