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The Enbridge Line 6B pipeline release of diluted bitumen into the Kalamazoo River downstream of Marshall, Michigan, U.S.A., in July 2010 was one of the largest oil spills into freshwater in North American history. A portion of the oil interacted with river sediment and submerged requiring the development and implementation...

We developed a spatially explicit model and map, as a decision support tool (DST), to aid conservation agencies creating or maintaining open pine ecosystems. The tool identified areas that are likely to provide the greatest benefit to focal bird populations based on a comprehensive landscape analysis. We used NLCD 2011,...

The San Luis Basin encompasses the largest structural and hydrologic basin of the Rio Grande rift. On this field trip, we will examine the timing of transition of the San Luis Basin from hydrologically closed, aggrading subbasins to a continuous fluvial system that eroded the basin, formed the Rio Grande...

Continental-domain assessments of climate change impacts on water resources typically rely on statistically downscaled climate model outputs to force hydrologic models at a finer spatial resolution. This study examines the effects of four statistical downscaling methods [bias-corrected constructed analog (BCCA), bias-corrected spatial disaggregation applied at daily (BCSDd) and monthly scales...

Polyoxyethylene tallow amine (POEA) is an inert ingredient added to formulations of glyphosate, the most widely applied agricultural herbicide. POEA has been shown to have toxic effects to some aquatic organisms making the potential transport of POEA from the application site into the environment an important concern. This study characterized...

The complex nature of groundwater and the diversity of uses and environmental interactions call for emerging groundwater problems to be addressed through integrated management and planning approaches. Planning requires different levels of integration dealing with: the hydrologic cycle (the physical process) including the temporal dimension; river basins and aquifers (spatial...

Robust estimates of precipitation in space and time are important for efficient natural resource management and for mitigating natural hazards. This is particularly true in regions with developing infrastructure and regions that are frequently exposed to extreme events. Gauge observations of rainfall are sparse but capture the precipitation process with...

Climate change will challenge managers to balance the freshwater needs of humans and wetlands. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts that most regions of the world will be exposed to higher temperatures, CO2, and more erratic precipitation, with some regions likely to have alternating episodes of intense flooding and...

In the Sierra Nevada mountains (USA), and geographically similar areas across the globe where human development is expanding, extreme winter storm and flood risks are expected to increase with changing climate, heightening the need for communities to assess risks and better prepare for such events. In this case study, we...

Desert wetlands are common features in arid environments and include a variety of hydrologic facies, including seeps, springs, marshes, wet meadows, ponds, and spring pools. Wet ground conditions and dense stands of vegetation in these settings combine to trap eolian, alluvial, and fluvial sediments that accumulate over time....

Soil and water are the two critical components of theEarth’s Critical Zone (Figure 1): Soil modulates the connection between bedrock and the atmospheric boundary layer and water is a major driving force and transport agent between these two zones....

In the twentieth century, groundwater characterization focused primarily on easily measured hydraulic metrics of water storage and flows. Twenty-first century concepts of groundwater availability, however, encompass other factors having societal value, such as ecological well-being. Effective ecohydrological science is a nexus of fundamental understanding derived from two scientific disciplines: (1)...

The goal of a data manager is to ensure that data is safely stored, adequately described, discoverable and easily accessible. However, to keep pace with the evolution of groundwater studies in the last decade, the associated data and data management requirements have changed significantly. In particular, there is a growing...

Bottomland hardwood (BLH) forests represent an extensive wetland system in the Mississippi Alluvial Valley and southeastern USA, and it is currently undergoing widespread transition in species composition. One such transition involves increased establishment of sugarberry (Celtis laevigata), and decreased establishment of overcup oak (Quercus lyrata). The ecological mechanisms that control...

Water quality of the Big Thompson River in the Front Range of Colorado was studied for 2 years following a high‐elevation wildfire that started in October 2012 and burned 15% of the watershed. A combination of fixed‐interval sampling and continuous water‐quality monitors was used to examine the timing and magnitude of...

Explosives used in construction have been implicated as sources of NO3– contamination in groundwater, but direct forensic evidence is limited. Identification of blasting-related NO3– can be complicated by other NO3– sources, including agriculture and wastewater disposal, and by hydrogeologic factors affecting NO3– transport and stability. Here we describe a study that used hydrogeology, chemistry,...

Wyoming’s Powder River is considered an example of a pristine prairie river system. While the river hosts a largely native <span...

Many tropical islands have limited water resources with historically increasing demand, all potentially affected by a changing climate. The effects of climate change on island hydrology are difficult to model due to steep local precipitation gradients and sparse data. This work uses 10 statistically downscaled general circulation models (GCMs) under...

Despite increasing concern that climate change may negatively impact trout—a globally distributed group of fish with major economic, ecological, and cultural value—a synthetic assessment of empirical data quantifying relationships between climatic variation and trout ecology does not exist. We conducted a systematic review to describe how temporal variation in temperature...

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) uses data collection, modeling tools, and scientific analysis to help water managers plan for, and assess, hydrologic issues that can cause “undesirable results” associated with groundwater use. This information helps managers understand trends and investigate and predict effects of different groundwater-management strategies....

Pharmaceuticals are present in low concentrations (<100 ng/L) in most municipal wastewater effluents but may be elevated locally because of factors such as input from pharmaceutical formulation facilities. Using existing concentration data, the authors assessed pharmaceuticals in laboratory exposures of fathead minnows (Pimephales promelas) and added environmental complexity through effluent exposures....

Mountainous areas surrounding the Campanian Plain and the Somma-Vesuvius volcano (southern Italy) are among the most risky areas of Italy due to the repeated occurrence of rainfallinduced debris flows along ash-fall pyroclastic soil-mantled slopes. In this geomorphological framework, rainfall patterns, hydrological processes taking place within multi-layered ash-fall pyroclastic deposits and...

Large river floods are a key water source for many lakes in fluvial periglacial settings. Where permeable sediments occur, the distribution of permafrost may play an important role in the routing of floodwaters across a floodplain. This relationship is explored for lakes in the discontinuous permafrost of Yukon Flats, interior...

The Central Valley in California (USA) covers about 52,000 km2 and is one of the most productive agricultural regions in the world. This agriculture relies heavily on surface-water diversions and groundwater pumpage to meet irrigation water demand. Because the valley is semi-arid and surface-water availability varies substantially, agriculture relies heavily on local...

Coastal marsh plants are increasingly subject to physicochemical stressors under rising sea levels, and the maintenance of marsh ecological functions can depend on the ability of individual species and communities to tolerate or adapt to altered conditions. We conducted a greenhouse experiment to identify hydrology and salinity effects on growth...