Demonstration of a conceptual model for using LiDAR to improve the estimation of floodwater mitigation potential of Prairie Pothole Region wetlands
S. Huang, Caitlin Young, M. Feng, Hans Karl Heidemann, Matthew Cushing, D.M. Mushet, S. Liu
2011, Journal of Hydrology (405) 417-426
Recent flood events in the Prairie Pothole Region of North America have stimulated interest in modeling water storage capacities of wetlands and their surrounding catchments to facilitate flood mitigation efforts. Accurate estimates of basin storage capacities have been hampered by a lack of high-resolution elevation data. In this paper, we...
Direction of unsaturated flow in a homogeneous and isotropic hillslope
N. Lu, B.S. Kaya, J. W. Godt
2011, Water Resources Research (47)
The distribution of soil moisture in a homogeneous and isotropic hillslope is a transient, variably saturated physical process controlled by rainfall characteristics, hillslope geometry, and the hydrological properties of the hillslope materials. The major driving mechanisms for moisture movement are gravity and gradients in matric potential. The latter is solely...
Rating curve estimation of nutrient loads in Iowa rivers
G.A. Stenback, W.G. Crumpton, K. E. Schilling, M.J. Helmers
2011, Journal of Hydrology (396) 158-169
Accurate estimation of nutrient loads in rivers and streams is critical for many applications including determination of sources of nutrient loads in watersheds, evaluating long-term trends in loads, and estimating loading to downstream waterbodies. Since in many cases nutrient concentrations are measured on a weekly or monthly frequency, there is...
A novel approach reveals that zinc oxide nanoparticles are bioavailable and toxic after dietary exposures
Marie Noele Croteau, A.D. Dybowska, S. N. Luoma, E. Valsami-Jones
2011, Nanotoxicology (5) 79-90
If engineered nanomaterials are released into the environment, some are likely to end up associated with the food of animals due to aggregation and sorption processes. However, few studies have considered dietary exposure of nanomaterials. Here we show that zinc (Zn) from isotopically modified 67ZnO particles is efficiently assimilated by...
A bacterium that can grow by using arsenic instead of phosphorus
Felisa Wolfe-Simon, Jodi S. Blum, T.R. Kulp, Gordon W. Rattray, S.E. Hoeft, J. Pett-Ridge, J.F. Stolz, S.M. Webb, P.K. Weber, P.C.W. Davies, A.D. Anbar, R.S. Oremland
2011, Science (332) 1163-1166
Life is mostly composed of the elements carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, sulfur, and phosphorus. Although these six elements make up nucleic acids, proteins, and lipids and thus the bulk of living matter, it is theoretically possible that some other elements in the periodic table could serve the same functions. Here,...
Effects of sediment-associated extractable metals, degree of sediment grain sorting, and dissolved organic carbon upon Cryptosporidium parvum removal and transport within riverbank filtration sediments, Sonoma County, California
D.W. Metge, R.W. Harvey, G. R. Aiken, R. Anders, G. Lincoln, James Jasperse, M. C. Hill
2011, Environmental Science & Technology (45) 5587-5595
Oocysts of the protozoan pathogen Cryptosporidium parvum are of particular concern for riverbank filtration (RBF) operations because of their persistence, ubiquity, and resistance to chlorine disinfection. At the Russian River RBF site (Sonoma County, CA), transport of C. parvumoocysts and oocyst-sized (3 μm) carboxylate-modified microspheres through poorly sorted (sorting indices, σ1, up to...
Coordinating standards and applications for optical water quality sensor networks
B. Bergamaschi, B. Pellerin
2011, Conference Paper, Eos
Joint USGS-CUAHSI Workshop: In Situ Optical Water Quality Sensor Networks; Shepherdstown, West Virginia, 8-10 June 2011; Advanced in situ optical water quality sensors and new techniques for data analysis hold enormous promise for advancing scientific understanding of aquatic systems through measurements of important biogeochemical parameters at the time scales over...
Approach for environmental baseline water sampling
K. S. Smith
2011, Conference Paper, SME Annual Meeting and Exhibit and CMA 113th National Western Mining Conference 2011
Samples collected during the exploration phase of mining represent baseline conditions at the site. As such, they can be very important in forecasting potential environmental impacts should mining proceed, and can become measurements against which future changes are compared. Constituents in stream water draining mined and mineralized areas tend to...
Wetland vegetation in Manzala lagoon, Nile Delta coast, Egypt: Rapid responses of pollen to altered nile hydrology and land use
C.E. Bernhardt, J.-D. Stanley, B. P. Horton
2011, Journal of Coastal Research (27) 731-737
The pollen record in a sediment core from Manzala lagoon on the Nile delta coastal margin of Egypt, deposited from ca. AD 1860 to 1990, indicates rapid coastal wetland vegetation responses to two primary periods of human activity. These are associated with artificially altered Nile hydrologic regimes in proximal areas and distal...
Estimation of mussel population response to hydrologic alteration in a southeastern U.S. stream
James Peterson, J.M. Wisniewski, C.P. Shea, Jackson C. Rhett
2011, Environmental Management (48) 109-122
The southeastern United States has experienced severe, recurrent drought, rapid human population growth, and increasing agricultural irrigation during recent decades, resulting in greater demand for the water resources. During the same time period, freshwater mussels (Unioniformes) in the region have experienced substantial population declines. Consequently, there is growing interest in...
What is the role of fresh groundwater and recirculated seawater in conveying nutrients to the coastal ocean?
Yishai Weinstein, Yoseph Yechieli, Yehuda Shalem, William C. Burnett, Peter W. Swarzenski, Barak Herut
2011, Environmental Science and Technology (45) 5195-5200
Submarine groundwater discharge (SGD) is a major process operating at the land-sea interface. Quantifying the SGD nutrient loads and the marine/terrestrial controls of this transport is of high importance, especially in oligotrophic seas such as the eastern Mediterranean. The fluxes of nutrients in groundwater discharging from the seafloor at Dor...
Monitoring duration and extent of storm-surge and flooding in Western Coastal Louisiana marshes with Envisat ASAR data
Elijah Ramsey III, Zhong Lu, Yukihiro Suzuoki, Amina Rangoonwala, Dirk Werle
2011, IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing (4) 387-399
Inundation maps of coastal marshes in western Louisiana were created with multitemporal Envisat Advanced Synthetic Aperture (ASAR) scenes collected before and during the three months after Hurricane Rita landfall in September 2005. Corroborated by inland water-levels, 7 days after landfall, 48% of coastal estuarine and palustrine marshes remained inundated by...
Causes of systematic over- or underestimation of low streamflows by use of index-streamgage approaches in the United States
K. Eng, J.E. Kiang, Y.-Y. Chen, D.M. Carlisle, G.E. Granato
2011, Hydrological Processes (25) 2211-2220
Low-flow characteristics can be estimated by multiple linear regressions or the index-streamgage approach. The latter transfers streamflow information from a hydrologically similar, continuously gaged basin ('index streamgage') to one with a very limited streamflow record, but often results in biased estimates. The application of the index-streamgage approach can be generalized...
The high life: Transport of microbes in the atmosphere
D.J. Smith, Dale W. Griffin, D.A. Jaffe
2011, Eos, Transactions, American Geophysical Union (92) 249-250
Microbes (bacteria, fungi, algae, and viruses) are the most successful types of life on Earth because of their ability to adapt to new environments, reproduce quickly, and disperse globally. Dispersal occurs through a number of vectors, such as migrating animals or the hydrological cycle, but transport by wind may be...
In situ measurements of post-fire debris flows in southern California: Comparisons of the timing and magnitude of 24 debris-flow events with rainfall and soil moisture conditions
J. W. Kean, D.M. Staley, S.H. Cannon
2011, Journal of Geophysical Research F: Earth Surface (116)
Debris flows often occur in burned steeplands of southern California, sometimes causing property damage and loss of life. In an effort to better understand the hydrologic controls on post-fire debris-flow initiation, timing and magnitude, we measured the flow stage, rainfall, channel bed pore fluid pressure and hillslope soil-moisture accompanying 24...
Impacts of past climate and sea level change on Everglades wetlands: placing a century of anthropogenic change into a late-Holocene context
Debra A. Willard, C.E. Bernhardt
2011, Climatic Change (107) 59-80
We synthesize existing evidence on the ecological history of the Florida Everglades since its inception ~7 ka (calibrated kiloannum) and evaluate the relative impacts of sea level rise, climate variability, and human alteration of Everglades hydrology on wetland plant communities. Initial freshwater peat accumulation began between 6 and 7 ka...
Biogeochemistry of a temperate forest nitrogen gradient
Steven S. Perakis, Emily R. Sinkhorn
2011, Ecology (92) 1481-1491
Wide natural gradients of soil nitrogen (N) can be used to examine fundamental relationships between plant–soil–microbial N cycling and hydrologic N loss, and to test N-saturation theory as a general framework for understanding ecosystem N dynamics. We characterized plant production, N uptake and return in litterfall, soil gross and net...
Modern thermokarst lake dynamics in the continuous permafrost zone, northern Seward Peninsula, Alaska
Benjamin M. Jones, G. Grosse, C.D. Arp, M.C. Jones, Anthony K.M. Walter, V.E. Romanovsky
2011, Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences (116)
Quantifying changes in thermokarst lake extent is of importance for understanding the permafrost-related carbon budget, including the potential release of carbon via lake expansion or sequestration as peat in drained lake basins. We used high spatial resolution remotely sensed imagery from 1950/51, 1978, and 2006/07 to quantify changes in thermokarst...
Comparative mobility of sulfonamides and bromide tracer in three soils
S.T. Kurwadkar, C.D. Adams, Michael T. Meyer, Dana W. Kolpin
2011, Journal of Environmental Management (92) 1874-1881
In animal agriculture, sulfonamides are one of the routinely used groups of antimicrobials for therapeutic and sub-therapeutic purposes. It is observed that, the animals when administered the antimicrobials, often do not completely metabolize them; and excrete the partially metabolized forms into the environment. Due to the continued use of antimicrobials...
Groundwater chemistry near an impoundment for produced water, Powder River Basin, Wyoming, USA
R. W. Healy, T.T. Bartos, C. A. Rice, M.P. McKinley, B. D. Smith
2011, Journal of Hydrology (403) 37-48
The Powder River Basin is one of the largest producers of coal-bed natural gas (CBNG) in the United States. An important environmental concern in the Basin is the fate of the large amounts of groundwater extracted during CBNG production. Most of this produced water is disposed of in unlined surface...
Hydrogeomorphic processes of thermokarst lakes with grounded-ice and floating-ice regimes on the Arctic coastal plain, Alaska
C.D. Arp, Benjamin M. Jones, F.E. Urban, G. Grosse
2011, Hydrological Processes (25) 2422-2438
Thermokarst lakes cover > 20% of the landscape throughout much of the Alaskan Arctic Coastal Plain (ACP) with shallow lakes freezing solid (grounded ice) and deeper lakes maintaining perennial liquid water (floating ice). Thus, lake depth relative to maximum ice thickness (1·5–2·0 m) represents an important threshold that impacts permafrost,...
Evaluating the effects of future climate change and elevated CO2 on the water use efficiency in terrestrial ecosystems of China
Q. Zhu, H. Jiang, C. Peng, J. Liu, X. Wei, X. Fang, S. Liu, G. Zhou, S. Yu
2011, Ecological Modelling (222) 2414-2429
Water use efficiency (WUE) is an important variable used in climate change and hydrological studies in relation to how it links ecosystem carbon cycles and hydrological cycles together. However, obtaining reliable WUE results based on site-level flux data remains a great challenge when scaling up to larger regional zones. Biophysical,...
Quantification of a greenhouse hydrologic cycle from equatorial to polar latitudes: The mid-Cretaceous water bearer revisited
M.B. Suarez, Luis A. Gonzalez, Greg A. Ludvigson
2011, Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology (307) 301-312
This study aims to investigate the global hydrologic cycle during the mid-Cretaceous greenhouse by utilizing the oxygen isotopic composition of pedogenic carbonates (calcite and siderite) as proxies for the oxygen isotopic composition of precipitation. The data set builds on the Aptian–Albian sphaerosiderite δ18O data set presented by Ufnar et...
Simulating adsorption of U(VI) under transient groundwater flow and hydrochemistry: Physical versus chemical nonequilibrium model
J. Greskowiak, M.B. Hay, H. Prommer, C. Liu, V.E.A. Post, R. Ma, J.A. Davis, C. Zheng, J.M. Zachara
2011, Water Resources Research (47)
Coupled intragrain diffusional mass transfer and nonlinear surface complexation processes play an important role in the transport behavior of U(VI) in contaminated aquifers. Two alternative model approaches for simulating these coupled processes were analyzed and compared: (1) the physical nonequilibrium approach that explicitly accounts for aqueous speciation and instantaneous surface...
Evaluation of TRIGRS (transient rainfall infiltration and grid-based regional slope-stability analysis)'s predictive skill for hurricane-triggered landslides: A case study in Macon County, North Carolina
Z. Liao, Y. Hong, D. Kirschbaum, R.F. Adler, J.J. Gourley, R. Wooten
2011, Natural Hazards (58) 325-339
The key to advancing the predictability of rainfall-triggered landslides is to use physically based slope-stability models that simulate the transient dynamical response of the subsurface moisture to spatiotemporal variability of rainfall in complex terrains. TRIGRS (transient rainfall infiltration and grid-based regional slope-stability analysis) is a USGS landslide prediction model, coded...
