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Theodore Roosevelt National Park is in western North Dakota and was established in 1978 under the National Wilderness Preservation system to preserve and protect the qualities of the North Dakota Badlands, including the wildlife, scenery, and wilderness. The park is made up of three units (North, Elkhorn Ranch, and South)...

To assist resource managers and planners in developing informed strategies to address nitrogen loading to coastal water bodies of Long Island, New York, the U.S. Geological Survey and New York State Department of Environmental Conservation initiated a program to delineate areas contributing groundwater to coastal water bodies by assembling a...

This report describes the regional hydrogeology and groundwater resources of Columbia County, Wisconsin, and documents a regional groundwater flow model developed for the county. Regional hydrostratigraphic units include the unlithified aquifer, the upper bedrock aquifer, and the Elk Mound aquifer. The unlithified aquifer consists of deposits that range in composition from...

Between July 2011 and February 2013, the City of Cedar Rapids observed water level declines in their horizontal collector wells approaching 11 meters. As a result, pumping from these production wells had to be halted, and questions were raised about the reliability of the alluvial aquifer under future drought conditions....

Executive SummaryThe Los Angeles Coastal Plain (LACP) covers about 580 square miles and is the largest coastal plain of semiarid southern California. The LACP is heavily developed with mostly residential, commercial, and industrial land uses that rely heavily on groundwater for water supply. In 2010, the LACP was home to...

A numerical groundwater flow model of the Hualapai Valley Basin in northwestern Arizona was developed to assist water-resource managers in understanding the potential effects of projected groundwater withdrawals on groundwater levels in the basin. The Hualapai Valley Hydrologic Model (HVHM) simulates the hydrologic system for the years 1935 through 2219,...

Nutrients, harmful algal blooms, and synthetic chemicals like per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) and 1,4-dioxane threaten Long Island’s water resources by affecting the quality of drinking water and ecologically sensitive habitats that support the diverse wildlife throughout the island. Understanding the occurrence, fate, and transport of these potentially harmful chemicals...

Bulletin 17C (B17C) recommends fitting the log-Pearson Type III (LP−III) distribution to a series of annual peak flows at a streamgage by using the method of moments. The third moment, the skewness coefficient (or skew), is important because the magnitudes of annual exceedance probability (AEP) flows estimated by using the...

The U.S. Geological Survey mined data from a variety of national and state agencies including USGS, Oregon Water Resources Department, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Washington Department of Ecology, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Portland State University, and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. A comprehensive dataset of streamflow, stage, and...

Avian populations must mount effective immune responses upon exposure to environmental stressors such as avian influenza and xenobiotics. Although multiple immune assays have been tested and applied to various avian species, antibody-mediated immune responses in non-model avian species are not commonly reported due to the lack of commercially available species-specific...

The methods of computation and estimates of the magnitude of flood flows were updated for the 50-, 20-, 10-, 4-, 2-, 1-, 0.5-, and 0.2-percent chance exceedance levels for 91 streamgages on the main island of Puerto Rico by using annual peak-flow data through 2017. Since the previous flood frequency...

The Rio Grande flows approximately 670 miles from its headwaters in the San Juan Mountains of south-central Colorado to Fort Quitman, Texas, draining the Upper Rio Grande Basin (URGB) study area of 32,000 square miles that includes parts of Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas. Parts of the basin extend into...

Maximum likelihood logistic regression (MLLR) models for the northeastern United States forecast drought probability estimates for water flowing in rivers and streams using methods previously identified and developed. Streamflow data from winter months are used to estimate chances of hydrological drought during summer months. Daily streamflow data collected from 1,143...

Scant availability of streamflow data can impede the utility of streamflow as a variable in ecological models of aquatic and terrestrial species, especially when studying small streams in watersheds that lack streamgages. Streamflow data at fine resolution and broad extent were needed by collaborators for ecological research on small streams...

The Mars volcano, Olympus Mons, is probably the best known extraterrestrial volcano. The summit forms a nested caldera with six overlapping collapse pits that collectively measure ~65 x ~80 kilometers (km). Numerous wrinkle ridges and graben occur on the caldera floor, and topographic data indicate >1.2 km of elevation change...

The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the National Park Service, developed a three-dimensional groundwater-flow model for Assateague Island in eastern Maryland and Virginia to assess the effects of sea-level rise on the groundwater system. Sea-level rise is expected to increase the altitude of the water table in barrier island...

The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the California Department of Water Resources (DWR), has constructed a new spatially detailed Precipitation-Runoff Modeling System (PRMS) model for the Merced River Basin, California, which is a tributary of the San Joaquin River in California. Operated through an Object User Interface (OUI) with...

Two datasets containing the first complete estimates of reach-scale nutrient, water use, dissolved oxygen, and pH conditions for the Pacific drainages of the United States were created to help inform water-quality management decisions in that region. The datasets were developed using easily obtainable watershed data, most of which have...

The Black River flows through southeast Missouri and northeast Arkansas to its confluence with the White River in Arkansas. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers operates Clearwater Dam on the Black River and a series of dams in the White River Basin primarily for flood control. In this study, the...

Evapotranspiration (ET) is the water-vapor flux transported from the surface of the Earth into the atmosphere and is the sum of surface water directly evaporated and subsurface water transpired by plants. ET rates are commonly estimated by using potential or reference ET, which might differ from actual ET rates. Actual...

Diel cycles are known to occur in all types of waters, and increasing studies indicate routine water samples may not provide an accurate snapshot in concentrations of trace elements and nutrients. Diel behavior in neutral to alkaline pH ranges is independent of streamflow variability and concentration. Extensive historical U.S. Geological...

Retrospective eruption characterization is valuable for advancing our understanding of volcanic systems and evaluating our observational capabilities, especially with remote technologies (defined here as a space-borne system or non-local, ground-based instrumentation which include regional and remote infrasound sensors). In June 2019, the open-system Ulawun volcano, Papua New Guinea, produced a VEI 4...

The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Montana Department of Transportation, developed regression equations based on channel width to estimate peak-flow frequencies at ungaged sites in Montana. The equations are based on peak-flow data at streamgages through September 2011 (end of water year 2011), and channel widths measured in...

Executive SummaryAlong the coast of the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, the eastern oyster (Crassostrea virginica) plays important ecological and economic roles. Commercial landings from this region account for more than 50 percent of all U.S. landings; these oyster reefs also provide varied ecosystem services, including nursery habitat for many fish...

Strandlines of peak-stage indicators (such as driftwood logs, woody debris, and trash) provide valuable data for understanding the maximum stage and extent of inundation during floods. A series of seven strandlines have been preserved along the Colorado River in Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona, USA. A survey and analysis of...