Chapter 5: Health and diseases
Ralph Vanstreels, Marcella Uhart, Thierry M. Work
2023, Book chapter, Conservation of marine birds
Health and diseases are integral parts of the life of seabirds that merit attention if we expect to truly understand, protect, and conserve them. Diseases such as avian influenza, avian pox, pasteurellosis, and paralytic shellfish poisoning have a proven history of decreasing the survival or breeding success of seabirds. However,...
National Land Cover Database 2019: A comprehensive strategy for creating the 1986-2019 forest disturbance product
Suming Jin, Jon Dewitz, Congcong Li, Daniel G. Sorenson, Zhe Zhu, Rakibul Shogib, Patrick Danielson, Brian Granneman, Catherine Costello, Adam Case, Leila Gass
2023, Journal of Remote Sensing (3)
The National Land Cover Database (NLCD) 2016 products show that, between 2001 and 2016, nearly half of the land cover change in the conterminous United States (CONUS) involved forested areas. To ensure the quality of NLCD land cover and land cover change products, it is important to accurately detect the...
iBluff: An open-source R package for geomorphic analysis of coastal bluffs/cliffs
Monica Palaseanu-Lovejoy
2023, SoftwareX (21)
The R package iBluff is designed for coastal bluffs/bluffs morphological analysis and offers an automatic and reproducible alternative to identify bluff edges using a bare earth digital elevation model (DEM) instead of hand digitizing. This package extracts elevation profiles along automatically identified transects on...
New maps of conductive heat flow in the Great Basin, USA: Separating conductive and convective influences
Jacob DeAngelo, Erick R. Burns, Emilie Gentry, Joseph F. Batir, Cary Ruth Lindsey, Stanley Paul Mordensky
2023, Conference Paper, Proceedings, 48th Workshop on Geothermal Reservoir Engineering
Geothermal well data from Southern Methodist University and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) were used to create maps of estimated background conductive heat flow across the Great Basin region of the western United States. These heat flow maps were generated as part of the USGS hydrothermal and Enhanced Geothermal Systems...
Continuous stream discharge, salinity, and associated data collected in the lower St. Johns River and its tributaries, Florida, 2021
Patrick J. Ryan
2023, Open-File Report 2022-1111
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Jacksonville District, is deepening the St. Johns River channel in Jacksonville, Florida, by 7 feet along 13 miles of the river channel beginning at the mouth of the river at the Atlantic Ocean, in order to accommodate larger, fully loaded cargo vessels. The U.S....
Interaction of a legacy groundwater contaminant plume with the Little Wind River from 2015 through 2017, Riverton Processing site, Wyoming
David L. Naftz, Christopher C. Fuller, Robert L. Runkel, John Solder, W. Payton Gardner, Neil C. Terry, Martin A. Briggs, Terry M. Short, Daniel J. Cain, William L Dam, Patrick A. Byrne, James R. Campbell
2023, Scientific Investigations Report 2022-5089
The Riverton Processing site was a uranium mill 4 kilometers southwest of Riverton, Wyoming, that prepared uranium ore for nuclear reactors and weapons from 1958 to 1963. The U.S. Department of Energy completed surface remediation of the uranium tailings in 1989; however, groundwater below and downgradient from the tailings site...
Assessment of habitat use by juvenile Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) in the Willamette River Basin, 2020–21
Gabriel S. Hansen, Russell W. Perry, Tobias J. Kock, James S. White, Philip V. Haner, John M. Plumb, J. Rose Wallick
2023, Open-File Report 2023-1001
We conducted a field study during 2020–21 to describe habitat use patterns of juvenile Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) in the mainstem Willamette, McKenzie, and Santiam Rivers and to evaluate how habitat suitability criteria affected the predictive accuracy of a hydraulic habitat model. Two approaches were used to collect habitat use...
Simulation of regional groundwater flow and advective transport of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst and vicinity, New Jersey, 2018
Alex R. Fiore, Susan J. Colarullo
2023, Open-File Report 2022-1112
A three-dimensional numerical model of groundwater flow was developed and calibrated for the unconsolidated New Jersey Coastal Plain aquifers underlying Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst (JBMDL) and vicinity, New Jersey, to evaluate groundwater flow pathways of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) contamination associated with use of aqueous film forming foam (AFFF) at...
Rangeland Condition Monitoring Assessment and Projection, 1985–2021
Matthew B. Rigge
2023, Fact Sheet 2023-3004
The Rangeland Condition Monitoring Assessment and Projection (RCMAP) project quantifies the percentage cover of rangeland components across the western United States using Landsat imagery from 1985 to 2021. The RCMAP product suite consists of nine fractional components: annual herbaceous, bare ground, herbaceous, litter, nonsagebrush shrub, perennial herbaceous, sagebrush, shrub, and...
National Civil Applications Center
Paul M. Young
2023, Fact Sheet 2022-3085
Introduction The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) National Civil Applications Center (NCAC) analyzes remote-sensing data from the Intelligence Community (IC) and the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) to support public safety missions and to study land-surface and environmental changes. The NCAC provides remotely sensed images to USGS scientists and other civilian Federal...
Sampling and analysis plan for the Koocanusa Reservoir and upper Kootenai River, Montana, water-quality monitoring program, 2021
Sara L. Caldwell Eldridge, Melissa A. Schaar, Chad B. Reese, Ashley M. Bussell, Thomas Chapin
2023, Open-File Report 2022-1113
In 2021, the U.S. Geological Survey will collect water-quality samples and environmental data from 3 sites in Koocanusa Reservoir and from 1 site in the Kootenai River. The transboundary Koocanusa Reservoir is in southeastern British Columbia, Canada, and northwestern Montana, United States, and was formed with the construction of Libby...
Improvements to estimate ADCP uncertainty sources for discharge measurements
Jose M. Diaz Lozada, Carlos M. Garcia, Kevin Oberg, Thomas M. Over, Federico Flores Nieto
2023, Flow Measurement and Instrumentation (90)
The use of moving boat ADCPs (Acoustic Doppler Current Profilers) for discharge measurements requires identification of the sources and magnitude of uncertainty to ensure accurate measurements. Recently, a tool known as QUant was developed to estimate the contribution to the uncertainty estimates for each transect of moving-boat ADCP discharge...
Survey of fish communities in tributaries to the Mohawk River, New York, 2019
Scott D. George, Dylan R. Winterhalter, Barry P. Baldigo
2023, Scientific Investigations Report 2022-5121
Fish communities of the Mohawk River and associated sections of the New York State Canal System have been well documented but little information is available regarding the status of fish communities in the extensive network of tributaries that feed the Mohawk River. This lack of information is problematic because changes...
A novel non-destructive workflow for examining germanium and co-substituents in ZnS
Sarah M. Hayes, Ryan J. McAleer, Nadine M. Piatak, Sarah Jane White, Robert R. Seal, II
2023, Frontiers in Earth Science (11)
A suite of complementary techniques was used to examine germanium (Ge), a byproduct critical element, and co-substituent trace elements in ZnS and mine wastes from four mineral districts where germanium is, or has been, produced within the United States. This contribution establishes a comprehensive workflow for characterizing Ge...
Maps of elevation of top of Pierre Shale and surficial deposit thickness with hydraulic properties from borehole geophysics and aquifers tests within and near Ellsworth Air Force Base, South Dakota, 2020–21
Colton J. Medler, William G. Eldridge, Todd M. Anderson, Stephanie N. Phillips
2023, Scientific Investigations Map 3502
The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the U.S. Air Force Civil Engineer Center, collected borehole geophysical data and completed simple aquifer tests to estimate the thickness and hydraulic properties of surficial deposits. The purpose of data collection was to create generalized contour maps of Pierre Shale elevation and surficial...
Recent and future declines of a historically widespread pollinator linked to climate, land cover, and pesticides
William Michael Janousek, Margaret R. Douglas, Syd Cannings, Marion Clement, Casey Delphia, Jeffrey Everett, Richard G. Hatfield, Douglas A. Keinath, Jonathan B Koch, Lindsie M. McCabe, John Michael Mola, Jane Ogilvie, Imtiaz Rangwala, Leif L Richardson, Ashley T. Rohde, James P. Strange, Lusha M. Tronstad, Tabitha A. Graves
2023, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (120)
The acute decline in global biodiversity includes not only the loss of rare species, but also the rapid collapse of common species across many different taxa. The loss of pollinating insects is of particular concern because of the ecological and economic values these species provide. The western bumble bee (Bombus...
Water Science School [Bookmark]
Tara A. Gross
2023, General Information Product 219
Introduction The U.S. Geological Survey’s online Water Science School is a one-stop shop for water education resources. In addition to sharing images, data, and diagrams, the Water Science School provides lesson plans for teachers as well as multiple interactive activities for students, such as questionnaires, calculators, and quizzes. This bookmark introduces...
Product specification document for dynamic surface water extent from Harmonized Landsat and Sentinel-2
John W. Jones, G. Shiroma
2023, Report
The primary purpose of this document is to convey product specifications of the OPERA (Observational Products for End-users from Remote-sensing Analysis) Level-3 Dynamic Surface Water Extent (DSWx) product that uses Harmonized Landsat-8 and Sentinel-2A/B (HLS) as the primary image-based inputs. This product, referred to by the short name DSWx-HLS, will...
A 1.2 billion pixel human-labeled dataset for data-driven classification of coastal environments
Daniel D. Buscombe, Phillipe Alan Wernette, Sharon Fitzpatrick, Jaycee Favela, Evan B. Goldstein, Nicholas Enwright
2023, Scientific Data (10)
The world’s coastlines are spatially highly variable, coupled-human-natural systems that comprise a nested hierarchy of component landforms, ecosystems, and human interventions, each interacting over a range of space and time scales. Understanding and predicting coastline dynamics necessitates frequent observation from imaging sensors on remote sensing...
Adult spawners: A critical period for subarctic Chinook salmon in a changing climate
Kathrine G. Howard, Vanessa R. von Biela
2023, Global Change Biology (29) 1759-1773
Concurrent, distribution-wide abundance declines of some Pacific salmon species, including Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha), highlights the need to understand how vulnerability at different life stages to climate stressors affects population dynamics and fisheries sustainability. Yukon River Chinook salmon stocks are among the largest subarctic populations, near...
Redd superimposition mediates the accuracy, precision, and significance of redd counts for cutthroat trout
Jeffrey R. Baldock, Robert Al-Chokhachy, Timothy E. Walsworth, Annika W. Walters
2023, Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences (80) 825-839
Redd counts are commonly applied to estimate spawning population size for salmonids and allow for broad spatial and temporal coverage in monitoring efforts. However, the utility of redd counts may be compromised by observation error, particularly with respect to superimposition, where later arriving spawners construct redds overlapping...
Invaders at the doorstep: Using species distribution modeling to enhance invasive plant watch lists
Catherine S. Jarnevich, Peder Engelstad, Jillian LaRoe, Brandon Hays, Terri Hogan, Jeremy Jirak, Ian S. Pearse, Janet S. Prevey, Jennifer Sieraki, Annie Simpson, Jess Wenick, Nicholas Young, Helen Sofaer
2023, Ecological Informatics (75)
Watch lists of invasive species that threaten a particular land management unit are useful tools because they can draw attention to invasive species at the very early stages of invasion when early detection and rapid response efforts are often most successful. However, watch lists typically rely on the subjective selection...
A model of transmissivity and hydraulic conductivity from electrical resistivity distribution derived from airborne electromagnetic surveys of the Mississippi River Valley Alluvial Aquifer, Midwest USA
Scott Ikard, Burke J. Minsley, James R. Rigby, Wade Kress
2023, Hydrogeology Journal (31) 313-334
Groundwater-flow models require the spatial distribution of the hydraulic conductivity parameter. One approach to defining this spatial distribution in groundwater-flow model grids is to map the electrical resistivity distribution by airborne electromagnetic (AEM) survey and establish a petrophysical relation between mean resistivity calculated as a...
Identifying building locations in the wildland–urban interface before and after fires with convolutional neural networks
Neda K. Kasraee, Todd Hawbaker, Volker C. Radeloff
2023, International Journal of Wildland Fire (32) 610-621
Background: Wildland–urban interface (WUI) maps identify areas with wildfire risk, but they are often outdated owing to the lack of building data. Convolutional neural networks (CNNs) can extract building locations from remote sensing data, but their accuracy in WUI areas is unknown. Additionally, CNNs are computationally intensive and technically complex, making...
A field test of R package GPSeqClus: For establishing animal location clusters
H. Dean Cluff, L. David Mech
2023, Ecological Solutions and Evidence (4)
The ability to track animals with Global Positioning System (GPS) collars opened an enormous potential for studying animal movements and behaviour in their natural environment. One such endeavour is to identify clusters of GPS locations as a way to estimate predator kill rate. Clapp et al. (2021) developed an R...
