Head-of-tide bottleneck of particulate material transport from watersheds to estuaries
Scott H. Ensign, Gregory E. Noe, Cliff R. Hupp, Katherine Skalak
2015, Geophysical Research Letters (42) 10671-10679
We measured rates of sediment, C, N, and P accumulation at four floodplain sites spanning the nontidal through oligohaline Choptank and Pocomoke Rivers, Maryland, USA. Ceramic tiles were used to collect sediment for a year and sediment cores were collected to derive decadal sedimentation rates using 137Cs. The results showed...
Potential application of radiogenic isotopes and geophysical methods to understand the hydrothermal dystem of the Upper Geyser Basin, Yellowstone National Park
James B. Paces, Andrew J. Long, Karl R. Koth
2015, Natural Resource Report NPS/YELL/NRR—2015/1077
Numerous geochemical and geophysical studies have been conducted at Yellowstone National Park to better understand the hydrogeologic processes supporting the thermal features of the Park. This report provides the first 87Sr/86Sr and 234U/238U data for thermal water from the Upper Geyser Basin (UGB) intended to evaluate whether heavy radiogenic isotopes...
An environmental survey of Serpentine Hot Springs: Geology, hydrology, geochemistry, and microbiology
D. Kirk Nordstrom, Linda Hasselbach, Steven E. Ingebritsen, Dana Skorupa, R. Blaine McCleskey, Timothy R. McDermott
2015, Natural Resource Report NPS/BELA/NRR—2015/1019
Serpentine Hot Springs is the most visited site in the Bering Land Bridge National Preserve. The hot springs have traditionally been used by the Native people of the Seward Peninsula for religious, medicinal and spiritual purposes and continue to be used in many of the same ways by Native people...
User-interactive sediment budgets in a browser: A web application for river science and management
David M. Sibley, David J. Topping, Megan Hines, Bradley D. Garner
2015, Conference Paper, Proceedings of the 5th Federal Interagency Hydrologic Modeling Conference and the 10th Federal Interagency Sedimentation Conference
Decision-support tools providing accurate, near-real-time data and user-friendly interactive visualizations are of critical value to resource managers tasked with planning and carrying out management programs in their domain. Creating a system to continuously aggregate datasets and recompute derived values is difficult and error-prone when attempted by hand. To address this...
Groundwater: The disregarded component in lake water and nutrient budgets, Part 1: Effects of groundwater on hydrology
Donald O. Rosenberry, Jorg Lewandowski, Karin Meinikmann, Gunnar Nutzmann
2015, Hydrological Processes (29) 2895-2921
Lake eutrophication is a large and growing problem in many parts of the world, commonly due to anthropogenic sources of nutrients. Improved quantification of nutrient inputs is required to address this problem, including better determination of exchanges between groundwater and lakes. This first of a two-part review provides a brief history of...
Hydrologic response for a high-elevation storm in the South Dakota Black Hills
Matthew J. Bunkers, Melissa Smith, Daniel G. Driscoll, Galen K. Hoogestraat
2015, Internal Report 2015-01
A group of thunderstorms produced >4 in of rain during four periods of progressively more intense rainfall across a small part of a relatively high-elevation area of the northern Black Hills on 5 August 2014. The resulting hydrologic response was noteworthy in two very small headwater drainage basins, where the...
Biology and ecology of Neosho Smallmouth Bass and the genetically distinct Ouachita lineage
Shannon K. Brewer, James M. Long
Michael D. Tringali, James M. Long, Timothy W. Birdsong, Michael S. Allen, editor(s)
2015, Book chapter, Black Bass diversity: Multidisciplinary science for conservation
We reviewed the published and gray literature associated with Neosho Smallmouth Bass and the genetically-distinct Ouachita lineage. Substantial inter-stream variation appears to occur among these populations, particularly related to age. The Neosho subspecies is more abundant, grows faster, and lives longer than the genetically-distinct Ouachita lineage. Recruitment is highly variable...
Second Projet de Renforcement Institutionnel du Secteur Minier de la République Islamique de Mauritanie (PRISM-II) Phase V
Cliff D. Taylor, editor(s)
2015, Open-File Report 2013-1280
In 1996, at the request of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, a team of U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) scientists produced a strategic plan for the acquisition, improvement and modernization of multidisciplinary sets of data to support the growth of the Mauritanian minerals sector and to highlight the...
Application of a process-based shallow landslide hazard model over a broad area in Central Italy
Eleonora Gioia, Gabriella Speranza, Maurizio Ferretti, Jonathan W. Godt, Rex L. Baum, Fausto Marincioni
2015, Landslides 1-18
Process-based models are widely used for rainfall-induced shallow landslide forecasting. Previous studies have successfully applied the U.S. Geological Survey’s Transient Rainfall Infiltration and Grid-Based Regional Slope-Stability (TRIGRS) model (Baum et al. 2002) to compute infiltration-driven changes in the hillslopes’ factor of safety on small scales (i.e., tens of square...
Do geographically isolated wetlands influence landscape functions?
Matthew J. Cohen, Irena F. Creed, Laurie C. Alexander, Nandita Basu, Aram J.K. Calhoun, Christopher Craft, Ellen D’Amico, Edward S. DeKeyser, Laurie Fowler, Heather E. Golden, James W. Jawitz, Peter Kalla, L. Katherine Kirkman, Charles R. Lane, Megan Lang, Scott G. Leibowitz, David Bruce Lewis, John Marton, Daniel L. McLaughlin, David M. Mushet, Hadas Raanan-Kiperwas, Mark C. Rains, Lora Smith, Susan C. Walls
2015, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
Geographically isolated wetlands (GIWs), those surrounded by uplands, exchange materials, energy, and organisms with other elements in hydrological and habitat networks, contributing to landscape functions, such as flow generation, nutrient and sediment retention, and biodiversity support. GIWs constitute most of the wetlands in many North American landscapes, provide a disproportionately...
Methods for estimating flow-duration curve and low-flow frequency statistics for ungaged locations on small streams in Minnesota
Jeffrey R. Ziegeweid, David L. Lorenz, Christopher A. Sanocki, Christiana R. Czuba
2015, Scientific Investigations Report 2015-5170
Knowledge of the magnitude and frequency of low flows in streams, which are flows in a stream during prolonged dry weather, is fundamental for water-supply planning and design; waste-load allocation; reservoir storage design; and maintenance of water quality and quantity for irrigation, recreation, and wildlife conservation. This report presents the...
Evaluating connection of aquifers to springs and streams, Great Basin National Park and vicinity, Nevada
David E. Prudic, Donald S. Sweetkind, Tracie R. Jackson, K. Elaine Dotson, Russell W. Plume, Christine E. Hatch, Keith J. Halford
2015, Professional Paper 1819
Federal agencies that oversee land management for much of the Snake Range in eastern Nevada, including the management of Great Basin National Park by the National Park Service, need to understand the potential extent of adverse effects to federally managed lands from nearby groundwater development. As a result, this study...
Quality of surface water in Missouri, water year 2014
Miya N. Barr
2015, Data Series 971
The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Missouri Department of Natural Resources, designed and operates a series of monitoring stations on streams and springs throughout Missouri known as the Ambient Water-Quality Monitoring Network. During the 2014 water year (October 1, 2013, through September 30, 2014), data were collected at...
Trans-Amazon Drilling Project (TADP): origins and evolution of the forests, climate, and hydrology of the South American tropics
P.A. Baker, S.C. Fritz, C.G. Silva, C.A. Rigsby, M.L. Absy, R.P. Almeida, Maria C. Caputo, C.M. Chiessi, F.W. Cruz, C.W. Dick, S.J. Feakins, J. Figueiredo, K.H. Freeman, C. Hoorn, C.A. Jaramillo, A. Kern, E.M. Latrubesse, M.P. Ledru, A. Marzoli, A. Myrbo, A. Noren, W.E. Piller, M.I.F. Ramos, C.C. Ribas, R. Trinadade, A.J. West, I. Wahnfried, Debra A. Willard
2015, Scientific Drilling (20) 41-49
This article presents the scientific rationale for an ambitious ICDP drilling project to continuously sample Late Cretaceous to modern sediment in four different sedimentary basins that transect the equatorial Amazon of Brazil, from the Andean foreland to the Atlantic Ocean. The goals of this project are to document the evolution...
Hydrologic data for the Walker River Basin, Nevada and California, water years 2010–14
Michael T. Pavelko, Erin L. Orozco
2015, Data Series 967
Walker Lake is a threatened and federally protected desert terminal lake in western Nevada. To help protect the desert terminal lake and the surrounding watershed, the Bureau of Reclamation and U.S. Geological Survey have been studying the hydrology of the Walker River Basin in Nevada and California since 2004. Hydrologic...
smwrBase—An R package for managing hydrologic data, version 1.1.1
David L. Lorenz
2015, Open-File Report 2015-1202
This report describes an R package called smwrBase, which consists of a collection of functions to import, transform, manipulate, and manage hydrologic data within the R statistical environment. Functions in the package allow users to import surface-water and groundwater data from the U.S. Geological Survey’s National Water Information System database...
A statistical learning framework for groundwater nitrate models of the Central Valley, California, USA
Bernard T. Nolan, Michael N. Fienen, David L. Lorenz
2015, Journal of Hydrology (531) 902-911
We used a statistical learning framework to evaluate the ability of three machine-learning methods to predict nitrate concentration in shallow groundwater of the Central Valley, California: boosted regression trees (BRT), artificial neural networks (ANN), and Bayesian networks (BN). Machine learning methods can learn complex patterns in the data but because...
Simulation of the effects of different inflows on hydrologic conditions in Lake Houston with a three-dimensional hydrodynamic model, Houston, Texas, 2009–10
Samuel H. Rendon, Michael T. Lee
2015, Scientific Investigations Report 2015-5153
Lake Houston, an important water resource for the Houston, Texas, area, receives inflows from seven major tributaries that compose the San Jacinto River Basin upstream from the reservoir. The effects of different inflows from the watersheds drained by these tributaries on the residence time of water in Lake Houston and...
The climate hazards infrared precipitation with stations—a new environmental record for monitoring extremes
Chris Funk, Pete Peterson, Martin Landsfeld, Diego Pedreros, James Verdin, Shraddhanand Shukla, Gregory Husak, James Rowland, Laura Harrison, Andrew Hoell, Joel Michaelsen
2015, Scientific Data (2)
The Climate Hazards group Infrared Precipitation with Stations (CHIRPS) dataset builds on previous approaches to ‘smart’ interpolation techniques and high resolution, long period of record precipitation estimates based on infrared Cold Cloud Duration (CCD) observations. The algorithm i) is built around a 0.05° climatology that incorporates satellite information to represent...
Characterization of hydrology and water quality of Piceance Creek in the Alkali Flat area, Rio Blanco County, Colorado, March 2012
Judith C. Thomas
2015, Scientific Investigations Report 2015-5147
Previous studies by the U.S. Geological Survey identified Alkali Flat as an area of groundwater upwelling, with increases in concentrations of total dissolved solids, and streamflow loss, but additional study was needed to better characterize these observations. The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Bureau of Land Management, White...
Paleoreconstruction of organic carbon inputs to an oxbow lake in the Mississippi River watershed: Effects of dam construction and land use change on regional inputs
Thomas S. Bianchi, Valier Galy, Brad E. Rosenheim, Michael Shields, Xingquan Cui, Peter C. Van Metre
2015, Geophysical Research Letters (42) 7983-7991
We use a dated sediment core from Lake Whittington (USA) in the lower Mississippi River to reconstruct linkages in the carbon cycling and fluvial sediment dynamics over the past 80 years. Organic carbon (OC) sources were characterized using bulk (δ13C, ramped pyrolysis-oxidation (PyrOx) 14C, δ15N, and TN:OC ratios) and compound-specific (lignin phenols...
Classification of ephemeral, intermittent, and perennial stream reaches using a TOPMODEL-based approach
Tanja N. Williamson, Carmen T. Agouridis, Christopher D. Barton, Jonathan A. Villines, Jeremiah G. Lant
2015, Journal of the American Water Resources Association (51) 1739-1759
Whether a waterway is temporary or permanent influences regulatory protection guidelines, however, classification can be subjective due to a combination of factors, including time of year, antecedent moisture conditions, and previous experience of the field investigator. Our objective was to develop a standardized protocol using publicly available spatial information to classify...
Regression Equations for Monthly and Annual Mean and Selected Percentile Streamflows for Ungaged Rivers in Maine
Robert W. Dudley
2015, Scientific Investigations Report 2015-5151
In an effort to delineate hydrologic conditions in Maine, the U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Maine Department of Transportation, used streamflow data to develop dependent variables for 130 regression equations for estimating monthly and annual mean and 1, 5, 10, 25, 50, 75, 90, 95, and 99 percentile...
Biodegradability of dissolved organic carbon in permafrost soils and aquatic systems: a meta-analysis
Jorien E. Vonk, Suzanne E. Tank, Paul J. Mann, Robert G.M. Spencer, Claire C. Treat, Robert G. Striegl, Benjamin W. Abbott, Kimberly P. Wickland
2015, Biogeosciences (12) 6915-6930
As Arctic regions warm and frozen soils thaw, the large organic carbon pool stored in permafrost becomes increasingly vulnerable to decomposition or transport. The transfer of newly mobilized carbon to the atmosphere and its potential influence upon climate change will largely depend on the degradability of carbon delivered to aquatic...
Depth, ice thickness, and ice-out timing cause divergent hydrologic responses among Arctic lakes
Christopher D. Arp, Benjamin M. Jones, Anna K. Liljedahl, Kenneth M. Hinkel, Jeffery A. Welker
2015, Water Resources Research (51) 9379-9401
Lakes are prevalent in the Arctic and thus play a key role in regional hydrology. Since many Arctic lakes are shallow and ice grows thick (historically 2-m or greater), seasonal ice commonly freezes to the lake bed (bedfast ice) by winter's end. Bedfast ice fundamentally alters lake energy balance and...
