Transport and fate of microbial pathogens in agricultural settings
Scott A. Bradford, Veronica L. Morales, Wei Zhang, Ronald W. Harvey, Aaron I. Packman, Arvind Mohanram, Claire Welty
2013, Critical Reviews in Environmental Science and Technology (43) 775-893
An understanding of the transport and survival of microbial pathogens (pathogens hereafter) in agricultural settings is needed to assess the risk of pathogen contamination to water and food resources, and to develop control strategies and treatment options. However, many knowledge gaps still remain in predicting the fate and transport of...
Use of gene-expression programming to estimate Manning’s roughness coefficient for high gradient streams
H. Azamathulla, Robert D. Jarrett
2013, Water Resources Management (27) 715-729
Manning’s roughness coefficient (n) has been widely used in the estimation of flood discharges or depths of flow in natural channels. Therefore, the selection of appropriate Manning’s nvalues is of paramount importance for hydraulic engineers and hydrologists and requires considerable experience, although extensive guidelines are available. Generally,...
Knowledge, transparency, and refutability in groundwater models, an example from the Death Valley regional groundwater flow system
Mary C. Hill, Claudia C. Faunt, Wayne Belcher, Donald S. Sweetkind, Claire R. Tiedeman, Dmitri Kavetski
2013, Physics and Chemistry of the Earth, Parts A/B/C (64) 105-116
This work demonstrates how available knowledge can be used to build more transparent and refutable computer models of groundwater systems. The Death Valley regional groundwater flow system, which surrounds a proposed site for a high level nuclear waste repository of the United States of America, and the Nevada National Security...
Desert fires fueled by native annual forbs: Effects of fire on communities of plants and birds in the Lower Sonoran Desert of Arizona
Todd C. Esque, Robert H. Webb, Cynthia S.A. Wallace, Charles van Riper III, Chris McCreedy, Lindsay A. Smythe
2013, Southwestern Naturalist (58) 223-233
In 2005, fire ignited by humans swept from Yuma Proving Grounds into Kofa National Wildlife Refuge, Arizona, burning ca. 9,255 ha of Wilderness Area. Fuels were predominantly the native forb Plantago ovata. Large fires at low elevations were rare in the 19th and 20th centuries, and fires fueled by native...
Origin of the Blytheville Arch, and long-term displacement on the New Madrid seismic zone, central United States
Thomas L. Pratt, Robert Williams, Jackson K. Odum, William J. Stephenson
2013, GSA Special Papers (493) 1-15
The southern arm of the New Madrid seismic zone of the central United States coincides with the buried, ~110 km by ~20 km Blytheville Arch antiform within the Cambrian–Ordovician Reelfoot rift graben. The Blytheville Arch has been interpreted at various times as a compressive structure, an igneous intrusion, or a...
Establishing an operational waterhole monitoring system using satellite data and hydrologic modelling: Application in the pastoral regions of East Africa
Gabriel B. Senay, Naga Manohar Velpuri, Henok Alemu, Shahriar Md Pervez, Kwabena O Asante, Gatarwa Karuki, Asefa Taa, Jay Angerer
2013, Pastoralism: Research, Policy and Practice (3) 1-16
Timely information on the availability of water and forage is important for the sustainable development of pastoral regions. The lack of such information increases the dependence of pastoral communities on perennial sources, which often leads to competition and conflicts. The provision of timely information is a challenging task, especially due...
Simulating the water budget of a Prairie Potholes complex from LiDAR and hydrological models in North Dakota, USA
Shengli Huang, Claudia Young, Omar I. Abdul-Aziz, Devendra Dahal, Min Feng, Shuguang Liu
2013, Hydrological Sciences Journal (58) 1434-1444
Hydrological processes of the wetland complex in the Prairie Pothole Region (PPR) are difficult to model, partly due to a lack of wetland morphology data. We used Light Detection And Ranging (LiDAR) data sets to derive wetland features; we then modelled rainfall, snowfall, snowmelt, runoff, evaporation, the “fill-and-spill” mechanism, shallow...
Characterizing LEDAPS surface reflectance products by comparisons with AERONET, field spectrometer, and MODIS data
Tom Maiersperger, Pat Scaramuzza, Larry Leigh, S. Shrestha, Kevin Gallo, Calli B. Jenkerson, John L. Dwyer
2013, Remote Sensing of Environment (136) 1-13
This study provides a baseline quality check on provisional Landsat Surface Reflectance (SR) products as generated by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center using Landsat Ecosystem Disturbance Adaptive Processing System (LEDAPS) software. Characterization of the Landsat SR products leveraged comparisons between aerosol optical thickness...
Land use and carbon dynamics in the southeastern United States from 1992 to 2050
Shuqing Zhao, Shuguang Liu, Terry L. Sohl, Claudia Young, Jeremy M. Werner
2013, Environmental Research Letters (8) 1-9
Land use and land cover change (LUCC) plays an important role in determining the spatial distribution, magnitude, and temporal change of terrestrial carbon sources and sinks. However, the impacts of LUCC are not well understood and quantified over large areas. The goal of this study was to...
Pre-eruptive magmatic conditions at Augustine Volcano, Alaska, 2006: Evidence from amphibole geochemistry and textures
Sarah De Angelis, Jessica D Larsen, Michelle L. Coombs
2013, Journal of Petrology (54) 1939-1961
Variations in the geochemistry and texture of amphibole phenocrysts erupted from Augustine Volcano in 2006 provide new insights into pre- and syn-eruptive magma storage and mixing. Amphiboles are rare but present in all magma compositions (low- to high-silica andesites) from the 3 month long eruption. Unzoned magnesiohornblende in the high-...
Projecting the land cover change and its environmental impacts in the Cedar River Basin in the Midwestern United States
Yiping Wu, Shuguang Liu, Terry L. Sohl, Claudia Young
2013, Environmental Research Letters (8) 1-13
The physical surface of the Earth is in constant change due to climate forcing and human activities. In the Midwestern United States, urban area, farmland, and dedicated energy crop (e.g., switchgrass) cultivation are predicted to expand in the coming decades, which will lead to changes in hydrological processes. This study...
Multitemporal cross-calibration of the Terra MODIS and Landsat 7 ETM+ reflective solar bands
Amit Angal, Xiaoxiong Xiong, Aisheng Wu, Gyanesh Chander, Taeyoung Choi
2013, IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing (51) 1870-1882
In recent years, there has been a significant increase in the use of remotely sensed data to address global issues. With the open data policy, the data from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) sensors have become a critical component of numerous applications. These...
Baseline-dependent responses of soil organic carbon dynamics to climate and land disturbances
Zhengxi Tan, Shuguang Liu
2013, Applied and Environmental Soil Science (2013) 1-7
Terrestrial carbon (C) sequestration through optimizing land use and management is widely considered a realistic option to mitigate the global greenhouse effect. But how the responses of individual ecosystems to changes in land use and management are related to baseline soil organic C (SOC) levels still needs to be evaluated...
Report A: Fish distribution and population dynamics in Rock Creek, Klickitat County, Washington
Brady Allen, Carrie S. Munz, Elaine Harvey
2013, Report, Rock Creek fish and habitat assessment for prioritization of restoration and protection actions
The U.S. Geological Survey collaborated with the Yakama Nation starting in fall of 2009 to study the fish populations in Rock Creek, a Washington State tributary of the Columbia River 21 kilometers upstream of John Day Dam. Prior to this study, very little was known about the ESA-listed (threatened) Mid-Columbia...
Variation in clinical phenotype of human infection among genetic groups of Blastomyces dermatitidis
Jennifer K. Meece, Jennifer L. Anderson, Sarah Gruszka, Brian L. Sloss, Bradley Sullivan, Kurt D. Reed
2013, Journal of Infectious Diseases (207) 814-822
Background. Blastomyces dermatitidis, the etiologic agent of blastomycosis, has 2 genetic groups and shows varied clinical presentation, ranging from silent infections to fulminant respiratory disease and dissemination. The objective of this study was to determine whether clinical phenotype and outcomes vary based on the infecting organism's genetic group.Methods. We used microsatellites to...
Water resources in the desert southwest
Robert H. Webb, Stanley A. Leake
Richard Malloy, John Brock, Anthony Floyd, Margaret Livingston, Robert H. Webb, editor(s)
2013, Book chapter, Design with the desert: Conservation and sustainable development
As the old saying goes, there is nothing more precious than water in the desert. The Ancestral Puebloans, Hohokam, and other pre-Columbian cultures knew this and built their civilizations near guaranteed water supplies. When the Spaniards arrived in present-day Arizona, they found that the Tohono O’odham and Piman cultures had...
Deformational and erosional history for the Abiquiu and contiguous area, north-central New Mexico: Implications for formation of the Abiquiu embayment and a discussion of new geochronological and geochemical analysis
Florian Maldonado, Daniel P. Miggins, James R. Budahm
2013, GSA Special Papers (494) 125-155
Geologic mapping, age determinations, and geochemistry of rocks exposed in the Abiquiu area of the Abiquiu embayment of the Rio Grande rift, north-central New Mexico, provide data to determine fault-slip and incision rates. Vertical-slip rates for faults in the area range from 16 m/m.y. to 42 m/m.y., and generally...
Effect of dissolved organic matter source and character on microbial Hg methylation in Hg–S–DOM solutions
Andrew M. Graham, George R. Aiken, Cynthia Gilmour
2013, Environmental Science & Technology (47) 5746-5754
Dissolved organic matter (DOM) is a key component of fate and transport models for most metals, including mercury (Hg). Utilizing a suite of diverse DOM isolates, we demonstrated that DOM character, in addition to concentration, influences inorganic Hg (Hg(II)i) bioavailability to Hg-methylating bacteria. Using a model Hg-methylating bacterium, Desulfovibrio desulfuricansND132, we...
Semidiurnal temperature changes caused by tidal front movements in the warm season in seabed habitats on the Georges Bank northern margin and their ecological implications
Vincent G. Guida, Page C. Valentine, Leslie B. Gallea
2013, PLoS ONE (8)
Georges Bank is a large, shallow feature separating the Gulf of Maine from the Atlantic Ocean. Previous studies demonstrated a strong tidal-mixing front during the warm season on the northern bank margin between thermally stratified water in the Gulf of Maine and mixed water on the bank. Tides transport warm...
Persistence and potential effects of complex organic contaminant mixtures in wastewater-impacted streams
Larry B. Barber, Steffanie H. Keefe, Greg K. Brown, Edward T. Furlong, James L. Gray, Dana W. Kolpin, Michael T. Meyer, Mark W. Sandstrom, Steven D. Zaugg
2013, Environmental Science & Technology (47) 2177-2188
Natural and synthetic organic contaminants in municipal wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) effluents can cause ecosystem impacts, raising concerns about their persistence in receiving streams. In this study, Lagrangian sampling, in which the same approximate parcel of water is tracked as it moves downstream, was conducted at Boulder Creek, Colorado and...
Monte Carlo simulations of product distributions and contained metal estimates
Mark E. Gettings
2013, Natural Resources Research (22) 239-254
Estimation of product distributions of two factors was simulated by conventional Monte Carlo techniques using factor distributions that were independent (uncorrelated). Several simulations using uniform distributions of factors show that the product distribution has a central peak approximately centered at the product of the medians of the factor distributions. Factor...
Overcoming the momentum of anachronism: American geologic mapping in a twenty-first-century world
Kyle House, Ryan Clark, Joe Kopera
2013, GSA Special Papers (502) 103-125
The practice of geologic mapping is undergoing conceptual and methodological transformation. Profound changes in digital technology in the past 10 yr have potential to impact all aspects of geologic mapping. The future of geologic mapping as a relevant scientific enterprise depends on widespread adoption of new technology and ideas about...
Summary, synthesis, and significance
Todd C. Esque, Kenneth E. Nussear, Richard D. Inman, Marjorie D. Matocq, Peter J. Weisberg, Thomas E. Dilts, Phillip Leitner
2013, Book chapter, Habitat modeling, landscape genetics, and habitat connectivity for the Mohave ground squirrel to guide renewable energy development, CEC‐500‐2014‐003
The initial habitat suitability model estimates pre‐European suitable habitat of the Mohave ground squirrel (MGS, Xerospermophilus mohavensis) covering 19,023 km2. Impact scenarios predicted that between 10 percent and 16 percent of suitable habitat has been lost to historical human disturbances, and up to an additional 10 percent may be affected...
Distribution of burrowing owls in east-central South Dakota
Jill A. Shaffer, Jason P. Thiele
2013, The Prairie Naturalist (45) 60-64
Western burrowing owl (Athene cunicularia hypugaea) populations have declined across much of western North America, particularly at the northern and eastern edges of the species’ breeding range (Martell et al. 2001, Murphy et al. 2001, Shyry et al. 2001, Skeel et al. 2001, Klute et al. 2003). In South Dakota,...
Estimating abundance of the Southern Hudson Bay polar bear subpopulation using aerial surveys, 2011 and 2012
Martyn E. Obbard, Kevin R. Middel, Seth P. Stapleton, Isabelle Thibault, Vincent Brodeur, Charles Jutras
2013, Wildlife Research Series 2013-01
The Southern Hudson Bay (SH) polar bear subpopulation occurs at the southern extent of the species’ range. Although capture-recapture studies indicate that abundance remained stable between 1986 and 2005, declines in body condition and survival were documented during the period, possibly foreshadowing a future decrease in abundance. To obtain a...
