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Excess nutrients and agrochemicals from non-point sources contribute to water quality impairment in the Chesapeake Bay watershed and their loading rates are related to land use, agricultural practices, hydrology, and pollutant fate and transport processes. In this study, monthly baseflow stream samples from 15 agricultural subwatersheds of the Choptank River...

Tampa Bay is recognized internationally for its remarkable progress towards recovery since it was pronounced "dead" in the late 1970s. Due to significant efforts by local governments, industries and private citizens throughout the watershed, water clarity in Tampa Bay is now equal to what it was in 1950, when population...

The United States Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Arizona Department of Water Resources, initiated an investigation of the hydrogeology and water resources of Detrital, Hualapai, and Sacramento Valleys in northwestern Arizona in 2005, and this report is part of that investigation. Water budgets were developed for Detrital, Hualapai, and...

In 2001, the National Water-Quality Assessment (NAWQA) Program of the U.S. Geological Survey initiated a series of studies on the transport of anthropogenic and natural contaminants (TANC) to public-supply wells (PSWs). The main goal of the TANC project was to better understand the source, transport, and receptor factors that control...

Background Accumulating evidence shows that the planet is warming as a response to human emissions of greenhouse gases. Strategies of adaptation to climate change will require quantitative projections of how altered regional patterns of temperature, precipitation and sea level could cascade to provoke local impacts such as modified water supplies,...

Uranium adsorption-desorption on sediment samples collected from the Hanford 300-Area, Richland, WA varied extensively over a range of field-relevant chemical conditions, complicating assessment of possible differences in equilibrium adsorption properties. Adsorption equilibrium was achieved in 500-1000 h although dissolved uranium concentrations increased over thousands of hours owing to changes in...

Geomorphic systems are known to exhibit nonlinear responses to physical–biological feedbacks (Thornes, 1985; Baas, 2002; Reinhardt et al., 2010). These responses make understanding and/or predicting system response to change highly challenging. With growing concerns over ecosystem health, a pressing need exists for research that tries to elucidate these feedbacks (Jerolmack,...

This report presents results of a study conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), in cooperation with the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection, to determine the occurrence of 14 commonly used human-health pharmaceutical compounds and fecal-indicator bacteria in Merrimack River water used as a drinking-water source by 135,000 residents in...

Executive Summary-Ecosystem Services Derived from Wetlands Reserve Program Conservation Practices in California's Central Valley and Oregon's Upper Klamath River Basin. The Wetlands Reserve Program (WRP) is one of several programs implemented by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Since the WRP's inception in 1990, it has resulted in the restoration...

Drought and summer drying can be important disturbance events in many small streams leading to intermittent or isolated habitats. We examined what habitats act as refuges for fishes during summer drying, hypothesizing that pools would act as refuge habitats. We predicted that during drying fish would show directional movement into...

Streamflow data, water-surface-elevation profiles derived from a Hydrologic Engineering Center River Analysis System hydraulic model, and geographical information system digital elevation models were used to develop a set of 18 flood-inundation maps for an approximately 5-mile reach of the West Branch Susquehanna River near the Borough of Jersey Shore, Pa....

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) collected water-quality data between 2001 and 2010 in the Fishermans Cove area of Ashumet Pond, Falmouth, Massachusetts, where the eastern portion of a treated-wastewater plume, created by more than 60 years of overland disposal, discharges to the pond. Temporary drive points were installed, and shallow...

The U.S. Geological Survey is conducting a series of multidisciplinary studies of the San Luis Basin as part of the Geologic framework of the Rio Grande Basins project. Detailed geologic mapping, high-resolution airborne magnetic surveys, gravity surveys, audiomagnetotelluric surveys, and hydrologic and lithologic data are being used to better understand...

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), in cooperation with the Goliad County Groundwater Conservation District, Victoria County Groundwater Conservation District, Pecan Valley Groundwater Conservation District, Guadalupe-Blanco River Authority, and San Antonio River Authority, did a study to examine the hydrology and stream-aquifer interactions in the upper Coleto Creek watershed. Findings of...

The former Chlor-Alkali Facility in Berlin, New Hampshire, was listed on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency National Priorities List in 2005 as a Superfund site. The Chlor-Alkali Facility lies on the east bank of the Androscoggin River. Elemental mercury currently discharges from that bank into the Androscoggin River. The nature,...

The Copper River Highway traverses a dynamic and complex network of braided and readily erodible channels that constitute the Copper River Delta, Alaska, by way of 11 bridges. Over the past decade, several of these bridges and the highway have sustained serious damage from both high and low flows and...

The Leadville mining district is historically one of the most heavily mined regions in the world producing large quantities of gold, silver, lead, zinc, copper, and manganese since the 1860s. A multidisciplinary investigation was conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Colorado Department of Public Health and...

In small watersheds, runoff entering local waterways from large storms can cause rapid and profound changes in the streambed that can contribute to flooding. Wymans Run, a small stream in Cochranton Borough, Crawford County, experienced a large rain event in June 2008 that caused sediment to be deposited at a...

Since 2003, the U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Sonoma County Water Agency, has been collecting chemical, microbiological, and isotopic data from surface-water and groundwater sites in Mendocino and Sonoma Counties, California. The investigation is being conducted to determine water-quality baseline conditions for the Russian River during the summer...

The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Missouri Department of Natural Resources, designs and operates a series of monitoring stations on streams throughout Missouri known as the Ambient Water-Quality Monitoring Network. During the 2010 water year (October 1, 2009 through September 30, 2010), data were collected at 75 stations-72...

During May 13-16, 2006, rainfall in excess of 8.8 inches flooded central and southern New Hampshire. On May 15, 2006, a breach in a bank of the Suncook River in Epsom, New Hampshire, caused the river to follow a new path. In order to assess and predict the effect of...

Given the potential for a projected acceleration in sea-level rise to impact wetland sustainability over the next century, a better understanding is needed of climate-related drivers that influence the processes controlling wetland elevation. Changes in local hydrology and groundwater conditions can cause short-term perturbations to marsh elevation trends through shrink–swell of marsh soils. To better understand...

The electrical conductivities of 34 electrolyte solutions found in natural waters ranging from (10-4 to 1) mol•kg-1 in concentration and from (5 to 90) °C have been determined. High-quality electrical conductivity data for numerous electrolytes exist in the scientific literature, but the data do not span the concentration or temperature...

Prior to operational changes in 2007, Detroit Dam on the North Santiam River in western Oregon had a well-documented effect on downstream water temperature that was problematic for endangered salmonid fish species. In this U.S. Geological Survey study, done in cooperation with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, an existing...

Implementation of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) and Wetlands Reserve Program (WRP) has resulted in the restoration of >2 million ha of wetland and grassland habitats in the Prairie Pothole Region (PPR). Restoration of habitats through these programs provides diverse ecosystem services to society, but...