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South Florida is home to the last remaining population of endangered Florida panthers, estimated at about 60 individuals. Panther survival is threatened by habitat loss and degradation, inbreeding, insufficient numbers of large prey, and disease. Because the few remaining panthers have been so intensively studied, a detailed database is available...

A network of seven observation wells that transmit ground-water-level data on a real-time basis through satellite telemetry is operating (started May 2001) in New Jersey through a cooperative effort of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP). The water-level data from these observation...

Governments depend on a common set of base geographic information as a tool for economic and community development, land and natural resource management, and health and safety services. Emergency management and homeland security applications rely on this information. Private industry, nongovernmental organizations, and individual citizens use the same geographic data....

Introduction The Sparta aquifer is an aquifer of regional importance within the Mississippi embayment aquifer system. It consists of varying amounts of unconsolidated sand, inter-stratified with silt and clay lenses within the Sparta Sand of the Claiborne Group. It extends from south Texas, north into Louisiana, Arkansas, and Tennessee, and eastward...

The Snake River Field Station of the Forest and Rangeland Ecosystem Science Center has developed and now maintains a database of the spatial information needed to address management of sage grouse and sagebrush steppe habitats in the western United States. The SAGEMAP project identifies and collects infor-mation for the region encompassing...

Changes in priorities for forest management on federal and state lands in the Pacific Northwest have raised many questions about the best ways to manage young-forest stands, riparian areas, and forest landscapes. The Cooperative Forest Ecosystem Research (CFER) Program draws together scientists and managers from the U.S. Geological Survey, Bureau...

The National Civil Applications Program (NCAP) is a component of the U.S. Geological Survey's (USGS) Mapping, Remote Sensing, and Geographic Investigations Program. The NCAP serves Federal civil agencies by providing for the acquisition, dissemination, and exploitation of classified remote sensing systems and data in support of mission responsibilities for land and resource management, environmental and scientific studies, homeland security, and hazards/disaster management. Civil...

SIMSPAR is a spatially-explicit, individual-based model designed as a management and evaluation tool for the Cape Sable seaside sparrow (Ammodramus maritimus mirabilis), an endangered subspecies of seaside sparrow that lives exclusively in the southern Everglades. The model is designed to simulate how changes in hydrology across the nesting area of...

Fishes are essential to the successful functioning of wetland food webs in southern Florida through their roles as prey and predators. Any changes that reduce the population sizes, community composition, or availability of aquatic animals will affect all facets of the ecology of these wetlands. In particular, small and medium-size...

Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) has appeared widely in the media lately, but has actually been around for a while. It was first recognized in Colorado in 1967, in a captive research herd of mule deer. Its rapid expansion, to include eight states and two provinces by the year 2002, has...

The Across Trophic Level System Simulation (ATLSS) Program of the U.S. Geological Survey has produced High-Resolution Hydrology and High-Resolution Topography models to provide high-resolution hydrologic data for the Greater Everglades landscape. Such hydrologic data is essential for describing the effect of hydrology on the important wildlife populations that are being...

The Middle Rio Grande Basin, as defined for this study, is the area within the Rio Grande Valley extending from about Cochiti Lake downstream to about San Acacia. It covers approximately 3,060 square miles in central New Mexico, encompassing parts of Santa Fe, Sandoval, Bernalillo, Valencia, Socorro, Torrance, and Cibola...

ALFISH is a model created under the Across Trophic Level System Simulation (ATLSS) Program of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). Its purpose is to describe fish functional groups in freshwater marshes of the greater Everglades area of southern Florida. In particular, it is intended to assess the spatial pattern of...

Cycling nutrient-enriched wastewater from holding ponds through natural, forested wetlands is a practice that municipal waste treatment managers are considering as a viable option for disposing of wastewater. In this wastewater cycling process, sewer effluent that has been circulated through aerated ponds is discharged into neighboring wetland systems. To understand...

Evaluating long-term trends and developing population models requires a large amount of data collected over a number of years at a number of locations. Information on alligator densities, nesting and growth have been collected in south Florida since the 1950s by rangers and researchers in Everglades National Park (ENP) and...

Catahoula Lake is the largest natural freshwater lake in Louisiana, covering more than 46 square miles (120 km2) (fig. 1). The lake is a principal stopover and wintering site for hundreds of thousands of migratory waterfowl and shorebirds. Scientists from the USGS National Wetlands Research Center are applying some of...

Dry Tortugas National Park, which includes Bush, Long, Loggerhead, Garden, and Bird Keys, is a cluster of islands and coral reefs approximately 112.9 km (70 miles) west of Key West, Florida (fig. 1). These islands were explored in 1513 by Ponce de León, who named them for the abundance...