Differentiable modelling to unify machine learning and physical models for geosciences
Chaopeng Shen, Alison P. Appling, Pierre Gentine, Toshiyuki Bandai, Hoshin Gupta, Alexandre Tartakovsky, Marco Baity-Jesi, Fabrizio Fenicia, Daniel Kifer, Li Li, Xiaofeng Liu, Wei Ren, Yi Zheng, Ciaran Harman, Martyn Clark, Matthew Farthing, Dapeng Feng, Praveen Kumar, Doaa Aboelyazeed, Farshid Rahmani, Yalan Song, Hylke E. Beck, Tadd Bindas, Dipankar Dwivedi, Kuai Fang, Marvin Hoge, Chris Rackauckas, Binayak Mohanty, Roy, Chonggang Xu, Kathryn Lawson
2023, Nature Reviews Earth & Environment (4) 552-567
Process-based modelling offers interpretability and physical consistency in many domains of geosciences but struggles to leverage large datasets efficiently. Machine-learning methods, especially deep networks, have strong predictive skills yet are unable to answer specific scientific questions. In this Perspective, we explore differentiable modelling as a pathway to dissolve the perceived...
Ring fault creep drives volcano-tectonic seismicity during caldera collapse of Kīlauea in 2018
Taiyi A. Wang, Paul Segall, Alicia J. Hotovec-Ellis, Kyle R. Anderson, Peter F. Cervelli
2023, Earth and Planetary Science Letters (618)
Basaltic caldera collapses are episodic, producing very-long-period (VLP) earthquakes up to Mw 5.4, with prolific inter-collapse (between collapses) volcano-tectonic (VT) seismicity. During the 2018 caldera collapse of Kīlauea Volcano, VT seismicity ceased following each collapse, and then accelerated to a quasi-steady rate prior to...
Assessment of salinity retention or mobilization by sediment-retention ponds near Delta, Colorado, 2019
Rodney J. Richards, Carleton R. Bern, Victoria Moreno
2023, Scientific Investigations Report 2023-5071
Salinity control efforts in the Colorado River Basin have focused on mobilization of salts from irrigated land, but nonirrigated rangelands are also a source of salinity. In particular, lands where soils have formed from the Late Cretaceous Mancos Shale under arid and semiarid climates contain considerable quantities of salt, mainly...
Efficacy of machine learning image classification for automated occupancy-based monitoring
Robert Charles Lonsinger, Marlin M. Dart, Randy T. Larsen, Robert N. Knight
2023, Remote Sensing in Ecology and Conservation (10) 56-71
Remote cameras have become a widespread data-collection tool for terrestrial mammals, but classifying images can be labor intensive and limit the usefulness of cameras for broad-scale population monitoring. Machine learning algorithms for automated image classification can expedite data processing, but image misclassifications may influence inferences. Here, we used camera data...
Potential effects of projected pumping scenarios on future water-table elevations near Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, New Mexico
Allison K. Flickinger
2023, Scientific Investigations Report 2023-5075
The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Air Force Civil Engineer Center, simulated different groundwater pumping scenarios from 2016 to 2050 to determine the potential future changes in groundwater levels in areas around the Kirtland Air Force Base Bulk Fuels Facility and an ethylene dibromide (EDB) plume. Projections of...
Stakeholder attitudes and perspectives on wildlife disease surveillance as a component of a One Health approach in Thailand
Serena Elise George, Moniek Smink, Nareerat Sangkachai, Anuwat Wiratsudakul, Walasinee Sakcamduang, Sarin Suwanpakdee, Jonathan M. Sleeman
2023, One Health Newsletter (17)
Coordinated wildlife disease surveillance (WDS) can help professionals across disciplines effectively safeguard human, animal, and environmental health. The aims of this study were to understand how WDS in Thailand is utilized, valued, and can be improved within a One Health framework. An online questionnaire was distributed to 183 professionals (55.7%...
BioLake: A first assessment of lake temperature-derived bioclimatic predictors for aquatic invasive species
Ryan C. Burner, Wesley Daniel, Peder S. Engelstad, Christopher J. Churchill, Richard A. Erickson
2023, Ecosphere (14)
Aquatic invasive species (AIS) present major ecological and economic challenges globally, endangering ecosystems and human livelihoods. Managers and policy makers thus need tools to predict invasion risk and prioritize species and areas of concern, and they often use native range climate matching to determine...
Successful eradication of invasive American bullfrogs leads to coextirpation of emerging pathogens
Blake R. Hossack, David L. Hall, Catherine L. Crawford, Caren S. Goldberg, Erin L. Muths, Brent H. Sigafus, Thierry Chambert
2023, Conservation Letters (16)
Interventions of the host–pathogen dynamics provide strong tests of relationships, yet they are still rarely applied across multiple populations. After American bullfrogs (Rana catesbeiana) invaded a wildlife refuge where federally threatened Chiricahua leopard frogs (R. chiricahuensis) were reintroduced 12 years prior, managers launched a landscape-scale...
Predicting inundation dynamics and hydroperiods of small, isolated wetlands using a machine learning approach
Jeffrey W. Riley, Charles C. Stillwell
2023, Wetlands (43)
The duration of inundation or saturation (i.e., hydroperiod) controls many wetland functions. In particular, it is a key determinant of whether a wetland will provide suitable breeding habitat for amphibians and other taxa that often have specific hydrologic requirements. Yet, scientists and land managers often are...
Impacts of spontaneous waterfall development on bedrock river longitudinal profile morphology
Sophie D. Rothman, Joel S. Scheingross, Scott W. McCoy, Helen Willemien Dow
2023, Journal of Geophysical Research - Earth Surface (128)
River profiles are shaped by climatic and tectonic history, lithology, and internal feedbacks between flow hydraulics, sediment transport and erosion. In steep channels, waterfalls may self-form without changes in external forcing (i.e., autogenic formation) and erode at rates faster or slower than an equivalent channel without waterfalls....
Postfire hydrologic response along the central California (USA) coast: Insights for the emergency assessment of postfire debris-flow hazards
Matthew A. Thomas, Jason W. Kean, Scott W. McCoy, Donald N. Lindsay, Jaime Kostelnik, David B. Cavagnaro, Francis K. Rengers, Amy E. East, Jonathan Schwartz, Douglas P. Smith, Brian D. Collins
2023, Landslides (20) 2421-2436
The steep, tectonically active terrain along the Central California (USA) coast is well known to produce deadly and destructive debris flows. However, the extent to which fire affects debris-flow susceptibility in this region is an open question. We documented the occurrence of postfire debris floods and flows following the landfall...
Translating stakeholder narratives for participatory modeling in landscape ecology
Jelena Vukomanovic, Lindsey Smart, Jennifer Koch, Virginia Dale, Sophie Plassin, Kristin B. Byrd, Colin Beier, Frederik Doyon
2023, Landscape Ecology (38) 2453-2474
ContextEngaging stakeholders in research is needed for many of the sustainability challenges that landscape ecologists address. Involving stakeholders’ perspectives through narratives in participatory modeling fosters better understanding of the problem and evaluation of the acceptability of tradeoffs and creates buy-in for management actions. However, stakeholder-driven inputs often take...
A detailed view of the 2020-2023 southwestern Puerto Rico seismic sequence with deep learning
Clara Yoon, Elizabeth S. Cochran, Elizabeth A. Vanacore, Victor Huerfano, Gisela Baez-Sanchez, John D. Wilding, Jonathan D. Smith
2023, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America (113) 2377-2415
The 2020–2023 southwestern Puerto Rico seismic sequence, still ongoing in 2023, is remarkable for its multiple‐fault rupture complexity and elevated aftershock productivity. We applied an automatic workflow to continuous data from 43 seismic stations in Puerto Rico to build an enhanced earthquake catalog with ∼180,000 events for the 3+ yr...
Structural discontinuities and their control on hydrothermal systems in the Great Basin, USA
Drew L. Siler
2023, Geoenergy (1)
Faults are important controls on hydrothermal circulation worldwide. More specifically, structural discontinuities, i.e. locations where faults interact and intersect, host many hydrothermal systems. In the Great Basin, western USA, an extensive characterization effort demonstrated that hydrothermal systems are controlled by one (or more) of eight types of structural discontinuities. Presumably,...
Beyond simple trend tests: Detecting significant changes in design-flood quantiles
Chandramauli Awasthi, Stacey A. Archfield, Brian J. Reich, Arumugam Sankarasubramanian
2023, Geophysical Research Letters (50)
Changes in annual maximum flood (AMF), which are usually detected using simple trend tests (e.g., Mann-Kendall test (MKT)), are expected to change design-flood estimates. We propose an alternate framework to detect significant changes in design-flood between two periods and evaluate it for synthetically generated AMF from the...
Refining capture-recapture recruitment estimation methods for Atlantic sturgeon
M.A. Baker, E.C. Ingram, D.L. Higginbotham, Brian J. Irwin, A.G. Fox
2023, Endangered Species Research (51) 203-214
The Atlantic sturgeon Acipenser oxyrinchus oxyrinchus was once of great commercial importance in many coastal rivers of the eastern USA. Over the 19th and 20th centuries, most historical stocks of Atlantic sturgeon were depleted by human activities. Estimating recruitment for the remaining populations is challenging due to sampling constraints, limited age...
The Factors Affecting Female Black Bear Harvest Rates in Pennsylvania
Brandon M. Snavely, Robert Charles Lonsinger
2023, Cooperator Science Series FWS/CSS-150-2023
Pennsylvania’s black bear (Ursus americanus) population increased in abundance and distribution during the latter third of the 20th century, leading to an increase in human-bear conflicts. Increases in harvest opportunities from 2002–2018 aimed to stabilize black bear population growth but did not substantially increase harvest, and annual harvest was often...
Identifying invertebrate indicators for streamflow duration assessments in forested headwater streams
Ken M. Fritz, Roxolana O. Kashuba, Gregory J. Pond, Jay R. Christensen, Laurie C. Alexander, Benjamin J. Washington, Brent R. Johnson, David Walters, William T. Thoeny, Paul C. Weaver
2023, Freshwater Science (42) 247-267
Streamflow-duration assessment methods (SDAMs) are rapid, indicator-based tools for classifying streamflow duration (e.g., intermittent vs perennial flow) at the reach scale. Indicators are easily assessed stream properties used as surrogates of flow duration, which is too resource intensive to measure directly for many reaches. Invertebrates are commonly...
Estimating proximity effects to wildfire fuels treatments on house prices in Cibola National Forest, New Mexico, USA
Ryan A. Fitch, Julie M. Mueller, James R. Meldrum, Christopher Huber
2023, Landscape and Urban Planning (238)
Forested landscapes in the Western United States are subject to growing size and severity of wildfires, in part due to historical management strategies focusing on wildfire suppression. Forest restoration treatments and fuels reductions, including thinning and prescribed burning, can reduce the frequency and intensity of wildfires. Extensive restoration and fuels...
The scale-dependent role of submerged macrophytes as drift-feeding lotic fish habitat
John S. McLaren, Robert W. Van Kirk, Phaedra E. Budy, Soren Brothers
2023, Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences (80)
Although submerged macrophyte (hereafter, “macrophyte”) communities are globally prevalent in low-gradient rivers, the net reach-scale effect of macrophytes on drift-feeding fish microhabitat preference is poorly understood. We used snorkeling and bioenergetics to study fish habitat selection for rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) in the Henrys Fork, ID, USA,...
Triple oxygen isotope compositions of globally distributed soil carbonates record widespread evaporation of soil waters
Julia Kelson, Tyler E. Huth, Benjamin H. Passey, Naomi E. Levin, Sierra V. Petersen, Paolo Ballato, Emily J. Beverly, Daniel O. Breecker, Gregory D. Hoke, Adam M. Hudson, Ji Haoyuan, Alexis Licht, Jay Quade
2023, Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta (355) 138-160
The stable isotopic composition of pedogenic carbonates is central to many studies of past climate and topography, providing a basis for our understanding of Earth's terrestrial history. A core assumption of many applications of oxygen isotope values (δ18O) of pedogenic carbonate is that they reflect the δ18O value of precipitation...
Human and infrastructure exposure to large wildfires in the United States
Arash Modaresi Rad, John T. Abatzoglou, Jason R. Kreitler, Mohammad Reza Alizadeh, Amir AghaKouchak, Nicholas Hudyma, NIcholas Nauslar, Mojtaba Sadegh
2023, Nature Sustainability (6) 1351
An increasing number of wildfire disasters have occurred in recent years in the United States. Here we demonstrate that cumulative primary human exposure—the population residing within the perimeters of large wildfires—was 594,850 people from 2000 to 2019 across the contiguous United States (CONUS), 82% of which...
Earthquake scenarios for Quito, Ecuador; Cali, Colombia; and Santiago De Los Caballeros, Dominican Republic
Robert Edward Chase, Kishor S. Jaiswal, Alejandro Calderon, Hugo Yepes, Loren Goddard, Catalina Yepes-Estrada
2023, Seismological Research Letters (94) 2360-2372
Earthquake risk associated with Quito, Ecuador; Cali, Colombia; and Santiago de los Caballeros, Dominican Republic is examined by generating a set of hypothetical earthquake scenarios considering seismic sources, recent seismicity, and major historical earthquakes recorded in the vicinity. In this study, particular focus...
Biotic and abiotic factors shaping bat activity in Maryland soybean fields
Lauren D. Maynard, W. Mark Ford, John D. Parker, Susan R. Whitehead
2023, Ecosphere (14)
Bats are important pest control agents in agriculture. Yet, the underlying fine-scale biotic and abiotic mechanisms that drive their foraging behaviors and responses to insect outbreaks are unclear. Herbivore-induced plant volatiles (HIPVs) can attract both invertebrate and vertebrate natural enemies that use the chemical plant cues to locate insect prey....
2023 Coastal master plan: ICM-wetlands – Submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV) updates
Kristin DeMarco, Donald Schoolmaster, Brady Couvillion
2023, Report, 2023 Louisiana’s comprehensive master plan for a sustainable coast
Submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV) provides critical structural habitat for valuable nekton and wildlife species across coastal ecosystems and can buffer the negative effects of land loss. Landscape change and restoration efforts across coastal Louisiana can impact the occurrence, coverage, and species assemblages of SAV, and changes to these foundational species...
