Salting behaviors influence urban stream conductivity in Boston, Massachusetts (USA)
Allison H. Roy, Annika Quick, Rebecca L. Hale, Kristina G. Hopkins, Jack S. Soucie
2025, Freshwater Science (44) 507-526
Freshwater salinization is a major concern in temperate climates where road salt is used as a deicer to manage snow and ice on roadways. In urban and suburban areas, wastewater, weathering of infrastructure, and salting on parking lots and sidewalks can also contribute to salt contamination, but little is known...
Remote sensing of chlorophyll a and temperature to support algal bloom monitoring in Blue Mesa Reservoir, Colorado
Tyler V. King, Robert Allen Bean, Katherine Walton-Day, M. Alisa Mast, Evan J. Gohring, Rachel G. Gidley, Natalie K. Day, Nicole D. Gibney
2025, Journal of the American Water Resources Association (61)
We present methods to reconstruct historical chlorophyll a and surface water temperatures from satellite-based remote sensing products for Blue Mesa Reservoir, Colorado, to support algal bloom monitoring. A machine learning model was trained to construct chlorophyll a concentrations from Sentinel-2 satellite imagery and in situ measurements of chlorophyll a concentrations (out of bag RMSE = 1.9 μg/L, R2 = 0.63) and reconstruct summertime...
Overcoming challenges in mapping hydrography and heterogeneity in urban landscapes
Kristina G. Hopkins, Rebecca L. Hale, Krista A. Capps, John S. Kominoski, Jennifer L. Morse, Allison H. Roy, Andrew Blinn, Shuo Chen, Liz Ortiz Muñoz, Annika Quick, Jacob Rudolph
2025, Hydrological Processes (39)
Understanding how water moves through a watershed is one of the most fundamental yet often complicated aspects of hydrology, especially in urban areas. Urban infrastructure and water management alter natural hydrological pathways in developed watersheds, which can violate assumptions of a watershed approach to ecosystem science. We focus on two...
Performance mapping and weighting for the evapotranspiration models of the OpenET ensemble
Meredith Reitz, J. M. Volk, T. Ott, M. Anderson, Gabriel Senay, F. Melton, A. Kilic, R. Allen, J. B. Fisher, Anderson Ruhoff, A.J. Purdy, J. Huntington
Thomas Ott, Martha Anderson, Forrest Melton, Ayse Kilic, Richard Allen, Joshua Fisher, Anderson Ruhoff, Adam Purdy, Justin Huntington, editor(s)
2025, Water Resources Research (61)
Evapotranspiration (ET) accounts for the majority of water available from precipitation in the terrestrial water cycle, and improvements to the accuracy, resolution, and coverage of ET data can enhance hydrologic models and assessments. The OpenET collaboration of six remotely sensed ET modeling teams has demonstrated that an ensemble approach to...
Declining reservoir elevations following a two-decade drought increase water temperatures and non-native fish passage facilitating a downstream invasion
Drew Elliot Eppehimer, Charles B. Yackulic, Lindsey Ann Bruckerhoff, Jianghao Wang, Kirk L. Young, Kevin R. Bestgen, Bryce Anthony Mihalevich, John C. Schmidt
2025, Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences (82) 1-19
River ecosystems are threatened by interactions among river regulation, non-native species, and climate change. Water use has exceeded supply in USA’s Colorado River basin draining its two largest storage reservoirs (Lake Powell and Lake Mead). In 2022, Lake Powell began releasing water from its lower epilimnion into the Grand Canyon...
Understanding economic and environmental tradeoffs of bottled water facilities using Structural Topic Modeling and Lexicon-based categorization of public news media
Alisha Yee Chan, Catherine Christenson
2025, Environmental Research Communications (7)
Bottled water facilities exist across the United States (U.S.) in all 50 states and have the potential to affect localities in which they are located. This study aims to understand how water bottling facilities are portrayed in news media in the U.S., focusing on economic and environmental tradeoffs, by using...
Simulated Hydrologic Responses to Proposed Wastewater-Return-Flow Scenarios in Falmouth, Massachusetts
Kendall M.F. Goldstein, Timothy D. McCobb
2025, Scientific Investigations Report 2025-5066
The Cape Cod aquifer is the sole source of drinking water for communities on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, including the Town of Falmouth, where the aquifer is currently threatened by contamination from septic-system-derived nitrogen. To address this problem, the Town is proposing to sewer areas of Falmouth, treat the wastewater at...
Consumption of a non-native Walking Catfish (Clarias batrachus) by a Florida Green Watersnake (Nerodia floridana) in Everglades National Park
Carter Haley, Eleanor Lane, Sarah Payne, Gabriella Silva, Matthew Fox Metcalf, Christina Romagosa, Kevin Donmoyer, Lisa Marie McBride, Sarah Rae Sherburne, Amanda Marie Kissel, Amy A. Yackel Adams, Mark Robert Sandfoss
2025, Reptiles and Amphibians (32)
No abstract available....
Low water levels interact with reservoir aging to increase the severity of summertime metalimnion dissolved oxygen minima in Lake Powell, desert Southwest, USA
Bridget Deemer, Caitlin M. Andrews, Robin H. Reibold, Bryce A. Mihalevich, Thomas A. Sabol, Jeremiah Drewel, Charles Yackulic
2025, Inland Waters (15)
Water level drawdowns are common in reservoirs and can affect dissolved oxygen (DO) dynamics via several pathways. In large storage reservoirs, inflow deltas are often important sites for sediment deposition, with some sediment laden rivers forming highly dynamic delta regions as they enter the reservoir. As water levels change, deposited...
Deformity, erosion, lesion, tumor, and parasite (DELT) anomalies in fish communities of the Chesapeake Bay watershed, USA: A regional assessment and potential landscape drivers
Sara E. Breitmeyer, Paul McLaughlin, Vicki S. Blazer, Gregory E. Noe, Kelly Smalling, Timothy A. Wertz, Tyler Wagner
2025, Environmental Monitoring and Assessment (197)
Fish diseases in freshwater ecosystems pose significant ecological and socioeconomic challenges, yet monitoring them in wild populations is complex due to interactions between pathogens, hosts, and environmental conditions. We examine the prevalence and watershed-scale landscape drivers of external deformity, erosion, lesion, tumor, and parasite (DELT) anomalies in 57 riverine fish...
Evaluation of the effects of sediments contaminated by industrial discharges to a unionid mussel (Fatmucket, Lampsilis siliquoidea) and a common test benthic organism (Amphipod, Hyalella azteca)
Chris D. Ivey, Jeffery A. Steevens, Ning Wang, Kathleen Patnode, James L. Kunz, John M. Besser
2025, Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (44) 3202-3211
Freshwater mussels are among the most sensitive species to a variety of chemicals in water exposures. However, few studies have been conducted to evaluate the effect of toxicants in sediments on mussels. Industrial discharges containing polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and metals entered the Kanawha River surrounding Blaine...
Water-resources inventory and assessment at Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument
Amanda L. Tudor
2025, Scientific Investigations Report 2025-5070
The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the National Park Service, prepared a water-resources inventory and assessment for Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument (KAWW). This compilation includes published and publicly accessible hydrologic data and resource assessments of streams, rivers, ponds, lakes, wetlands, vernal pools, and groundwater in and near...
U.S. Geological Survey streamgage network in the Upper Colorado River Basin—Recording the hydrologic history of the Western United States
Brandon T. Forbes, Cheryl A. Eddy-Miller, Ryan C. Rowland, Olivia A. Drukker, Jeffrey Cordova
2025, Fact Sheet 2025-3039
IntroductionWater supply in the Western United States is an essential resource, and the collection of accurate and timely water information is fundamental to effectively managing water resources in the region. Efforts to document the hydrology in the Colorado River Basin are vital to life in the Western United States. These...
Hydrogeology of unconsolidated and bedrock aquifers along the Salmon River, including Malone, Franklin County, New York
Shannon R. Fisher, John G. Van Hoesen, Paul M. Heisig, Joshua Woda
2025, Scientific Investigations Report 2025-5048
The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, investigated the hydrogeology of the unconsolidated and bedrock aquifers along the Salmon River corridor in northern Franklin County, New York. The study area covers roughly 147 square miles and includes the village of Malone and...
Density dependence and weather drive dabbling duck spatiotemporal distributions and intercontinental migration
Ben D. Golas, Diann Prosser, Andrew M. Ramey, Paul K. Link, Wayne E. Thogmartin
2025, Avian Research (16)
Understanding migratory waterfowl spatiotemporal distributions is important because, in addition to their economic and cultural value, wild waterfowl can be infectious reservoirs of highly pathogenic avian influenza virus (HPAIV). Waterfowl migration has been implicated in regional and intercontinental HPAIV dispersal,...
The influence of mountain streamflow on nearshore ecosystem metabolism in a large, oligotrophic lake across a drought and a wet year
Kelly Loria, Heili Lowman, Jasimine Krause, Leon R. Katona, Ramon C. Naranjo, Facundo Scordo, Adrian A. Harpold, Sudeep Chandra, Joanna Blaszczak
2025, Limnology and Oceanography (70) 2645-2659
The influence of streamflow can be highly heterogeneous around lake edges, making it challenging to predict how benthic productivity in the littoral zone responds to hydroclimatic change. The degree to which streamflow affects nearshore productivity varies as a function of catchment characteristics, internal lake morphometry, and processes. This study investigates...
Warming Alaskan rivers affect first-year growth in critical northern food fishes
Peyton Thomas, Dylan Blaskey, Yifan Cheng, Michael P. Carey, Heidi K. Swanson, Andrew J. Newman, Cassandra M. Brooks, Nicole M. Herman-Mercer, Keith N. Musselman
2025, Scientific Reports (15)
Arctic and subarctic rivers are warming rapidly, with unknown consequences for migratory fishes and the human communities dependent on them. To date, few studies have provided a comprehensive assessment of possible climate change impacts on the hydrology and temperature of Arctic rivers at the regional scale, and even fewer have...
Wetlands, groundwater and seasonality influence the spatial distribution of stream chemistry in a low-relief catchment
Caroline R. Weidner, Jay P. Zarnestke, Anthony D. Kendall, Sherry Lynn Martin, Samuel Nesheim, Arial J. Shogren
2025, JGR Biogeosciences (130)
Evaluating stream water chemistry patterns provides insight into catchment ecosystem and hydrologic processes. Spatially distributed patterns and controls of stream solutes are well-established for high-relief catchments where solute flow paths align with surface topography. However, the controls on solute patterns are poorly constrained for low-relief catchments where hydrogeologic heterogeneities and...
Hydrophone placement yields high variability in detection of Epinephelus striatus calls at a spawning site.
Cameron J. Van Horn, Alli C. Candelmo, Scott A. Heppell, Croy R.M. McCoy, Christine V. Pattengill-Semmens, Lynn Waterhouse, Laurent M. Cherubin, J. Christopher Taylor, William Michaels, James Locascio, Ali K. Ibrahim, Brice X. Semmens
2025, Ecological Applications (35)
Passive acoustic monitoring is a cost-effective, minimally invasive technology commonly used to study behavior and population dynamics of soniferous fish species. To understand the strengths and limitations of acoustic monitoring for this purpose at fish spawning aggregations (FSA) requires an assessment of the variability in aggregation-associated sounds (AAS) as a...
Impacts of flowering rush (Butomus umbellatus L.) on macrophyte diversity and composition in the Upper Mississippi River
Alicia Carhart, Danelle M. Larson, Jennifer Froehly, Eric Lund, Stephanie Szura, Seth Fopma
2025, Biological Invasions (27)
Flowering rush (Butomus umbellatus L.), a perennial plant native to Eurasia, made a widespread appearance in the Upper Mississippi River in the United States in 2020, following extremely high river discharge during the previous year. Flowering rush expanded rapidly and was found at 1–10% of sites (n = 6,630 total sites) across a...
Applying U.S. Geological Survey science to understand effects to water supply in the Upper Colorado River Basin
Natalie K. Day, Cory A. Williams
2025, Fact Sheet 2025-3036
IntroductionThe Colorado River Basin is a vital source of water to more than 40 million people in the Western United States and Mexico, including in major cities like Denver, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Tucson, Los Angeles, and San Diego, and supports irrigation for about 16,000 square kilometers of agricultural land. Since...
Launching into societal benefits from the Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) mission
Margaret Srinivasan, Vardis Tsontos, Matthew Bonnema, Santiago Pena-Luque, Alexandre de Amorim-Teixiera, Alexandre Abdalla Araujo, Edward Beighley, Charon Birkett, Curtis Chen, Louise Croneborg-Jones, Cedric David, Shailen Desai, Alain Dib, Bradley Doorn, Robert W. Dudley, Bareerah Fatima, Luciana Fenoglio, Renato Prata de Moraes Frasson, Chandana Gangodagamage, Stephanie Granger, Isabel Houghton, Gregg Jacobs, Indu Jayaluxmi, Pierre-Yves Le Traon, Cassandra Nickles, Nicolas Picot, Guy Schumann, Babette Tchonang, Paula Torre Zaffaroni, Peter Van Oevelen, Jinbo Wang, Jerry Wegiel
2025, Water Resources Research (61)
The 10th Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) Applications Meeting, held one year after the satellite's launch, highlighted significant milestones in mission progress and showcased the innovative work of SWOT Early Adopters (EA) using mission data products. Over 100 participants from diverse sectors convened to discuss operational applications leveraging SWOT's...
Contributions of Great Salt Lake playa- and industrially-sourced priority pollutant metals in dust contribute to possible health hazards in the communities of northern Utah
Annie L. Putman, Molly A. Blakowski, Destry N. DiViesti, Diego P. Fernandez, Morgan C. McDonnell, Patrick C. Longley, Daniel K. Jones
2025, GeoHealth (9)
Communities and ecosystems of northern Utah, USA receive particulate pollution from anthropogenic activity and dust emissions from sources including the Great Salt Lake (“the Lake”) playa. In addition to affecting communities, anthropogenic pollution is delivered to the Lake's playa sediments, which are eroded during dust events. Yet, spatial variability in...
High resolution mapping of submerged sediment size and suitable salmon spawning habitat using topo-bathymetric Lidar in the Santiam Basin, Oregon
James White, Karen Michelle Bartelt, Brandon Overstreet, Jacob Ryan Kelley
2025, Water Resources Research (61)
The distribution of river-bed grain sizes plays a foundational role in river morphology and ecology. River-bed grain size is a key driver of channel form and process, and has first order effects on aquatic macroinvertebrate assemblages, fish nesting, and biogeochemical processes. Despite this importance, tools to spatially quantify grain-size distributions,...
The U.S. Geological Survey National Water Quality Network—Groundwater, 2024
Bruce D. Lindsey, James A. Kingsbury, Leah Marissa Santangelo
2025, General Information Product 256
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) operates a National Water Quality Network (NWQN) to monitor trends in groundwater quality and assess emerging contaminants of concern. It is a “network of networks” with 81 subnetworks being sampled on a decadal time scale. Each year, 8 of the subnetworks are sampled. Subnetworks have...
