Water use in Louisiana, 2020
Angela L. Robinson
2026, Scientific Investigations Report 2026-5135
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), in cooperation with the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development, collected water-withdrawal and water-use data from a 2020 inventory of water withdrawals in Louisiana. In 2020, approximately 8,700 million gallons per day (Mgal/d) of water was withdrawn from groundwater and surface-water sources in Louisiana, which...
Reconstructing ancient sedimentary source-to-sink systems – Examples from southern Laurentia’s Proterozoic accretionary orogens
Ian William Hillenbrand, Kelly David Thomson
2026, GSA Bulletin
Provenance analysis is a powerful tool for investigating sediment delivery networks, constraining magmatic histories, and reconstructing the tectonic evolution of orogenic belts and basins. Basin analysis studies increasingly use detrital zircon (DZ) U-Pb forward mixture modeling to enhance provenance interpretations by quantifying the relative contributions of different sources. Forward mixture...
Life history traits and population dynamics of Freshwater Drum across large river gradients
Kristen L. Bouska, Levi E. Solomon, Andrew Bartels, Steven A. DeLain, Eric J. Gittinger, Travis Kueter, Kristopher A. Maxson, John L. West, James T. Lamer, Hae H. Kim, Quinton Phelps
2026, Transactions of the American Fisheries Society
ObjectiveMonitoring and assessment of nongame native fishes is limited, but conservation interest in these species is growing. Freshwater Drum Aplodinotus grunniens are a wide-ranging species that serve important functional roles and could serve as an indicator for similar but less common species. Our overall objectives were to quantify...
Los Planes watershed vegetation monitoring: Standard operating procedures
Natalie R. Wilson
2026, Report
This is a description of survey procedures for short term vegetation monitoring at Natural Infrastructure in Dryland Stream (NIDS) structure sites and control sites a ranch in the Los Planes, La Paz, Baja California Sur. This study design was modified from USGS Short Term Vegetation Response Study (Wilson et al....
Analysis of alternative weir designs for improved passage of select fish at the U.S. Geological Survey streamgaging weir at Blackwells Mills, New Jersey
Thomas P. Suro, Michal J. Niemoczynski, Kevin B. Mulligan
2026, Scientific Investigations Report 2026-5002
As the population of New Jersey continues to remain dense, the need for water supply will likely continue to be high, which can lead to water managers needing to make difficult decisions about managing drinking-water supply. Streamgaging weirs like the ones used by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) play a...
Regional conservation planning tool: A spreadsheet model to support spatial prioritization and resource allocation decisions
Anastasia Couvillon, Gregory J. Soulliere, David H. Gordon, Diane Eggeman, Mohammed A Al-Saffar, Dale D. Humburg, James E. Lyons
2026, Wildlife Society Bulletin
Prioritization is a central component of natural resource management because conservation needs routinely exceed available resources. Waterfowl and wetland conservation programs in North America are at the forefront of landscape-scale prioritization and transboundary management decisions due to the migratory nature of ducks, geese, and swans. The growing availability of geographic...
USGS 2025 critical minerals review
James V. Jones III, Tanya Gallegos, Mojisola Abosede Kunledare, Charlotte E. Riggs
2026, Mining Engineering (78) 42-57
The United States Geological Survey (USGS) provides scientific information for the Department of Interior and the nation, consistent with its original mission expressed in the Organic Act of 1879 (43 U.S.C. 31): “the classification of the public lands and examination of the geological structure, mineral resources, and products within and...
An overview and participatory framework for choosing spatial boundaries in social–ecological systems modeling
Christina D. Perella, Jelena Vukomanovic, Caleb R. Hickman, Adam J. Terando, Mitchell J. Eaton, Marie Schaefer
2026, ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information (15)
A common challenge when modeling social–ecological systems (SESs) is defining the spatial extent of the system. Boundaries that do not adequately capture both social and ecological processes and their interactions can lead to mischaracterization of the system, while expanding boundaries too widely can impact model complexity and required resources. Socially,...
Revisiting the utility of regional-scale, high-quality geophysical data in mineral exploration - A case study featuring the Mammoth Magnetic Anomaly, Pinal County, Arizona
Callum Andrew Walter
2026, Conference Paper
Regional aeromagnetic surveys passively measure the total magnetic intensity (TMI) and are a foundational tool used in mineral exploration (Airo, 2015). With the increased global demand and the number of critical mineral resources required for manufacturing high-tech devices, developing high-quality, regional-scale geophysical surveys could aid critical mineral exploration efforts and...
The United States Magnetotelluric Array and the National Impedance Map
Anna Kelbert, Paul A. Bedrosian, Adam Schultz, Gary D. Egbert, Louise Pellerin, Jeffrey J. Love, Andy Frassetto, Benjamin S. Murphy
2026, Reviews of Geophysics (64)
The United States Magnetotelluric Array (USMTArray) data set, collected in the years 2006–2024, consists of more than 1,700 long-period magnetotelluric stations covering the entirety of the contiguous United States on a quasi-regular 70 km grid. Funding across multiple federal agencies was critical to sustaining this effort to its completion. Important components...
Understanding the occurrence and distribution of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in surface waters of the nontidal Passaic River Basin
Molly L. Schreiner, Kristin M. Romanok, Jacob T. Gray, Eileen J. Brown, Brianna M. Williams, Maureen Kneser, Albert J. Capuzzi, Jason Boerner, Luke Giunta, Paul Serillo, John J. Trainor, Kelly L. Smalling
2026, Scientific Investigations Report 2026-5018
This study, completed by the U.S. Geological Survey in cooperation with the North Jersey District Water Supply Commission (NJDWSC), was designed to characterize the occurrence and distribution of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in surface waters of the nontidal Passaic River Basin in New Jersey that have the potential to...
Assessment of long-term trends in streamflow statistics within and near the Mobile Bay and Perdido Bay watersheds, United States, 1950–2022
William H. Asquith, Elena R. Crowley-Ornelas, Amanda R. Whaling
2026, Scientific Investigations Report 2026-5142
The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Gulf Coast Ecosystem Restoration Council, assessed monotonic trends for a variety of streamflow statistics for 69 long-term U.S. Geological Survey streamgages within either the Mobile Bay or Perdido Bay watersheds that were active through at least at the end of calendar year...
Evaluating approximations of river channel shape using a national cross section database
Carl J. Legleiter, Paul J. Kinzel
2026, Water Resources Research (62)
Many hydrologic applications require basic information on the size and shape of river channels, but measuring cross section (XS) geometry in the field or via remote sensing can be costly and often provides only partial coverage. Given these challenges, we capitalized upon an existing data set of 46,971 XS from...
Changes in suspended sediment concentration along tidal rivers of the Chesapeake Bay: The tidal freshwater “sediment shadow”
Gregory E. Noe, Rebecca Murphy, Ken Krauss
2026, Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science (337)
Transport of terrigenic sediment from nontidal watersheds into estuaries has important impacts on coastal habitat quality, pollutant transport, and resilience to sea-level rise. However, relatively little is known about changes in suspended sediment as nontidal rivers encounter tide, transition into tidal rivers through the tidal freshwater zone (TFZ), and enter...
Hydrologic investigation of water level fluctuations at Moreau Lake, Moreau Lake State Park, town of Moreau, New York
Paul M. Heisig
2026, Scientific Investigations Report 2026-5132
The causes of water level fluctuations at Moreau Lake, within Moreau Lake State Park in the town of Moreau, New York, were investigated from 2016 to 2021 after lake water levels dropped between 2015 and 2016, raising concerns about the loss of a shallow swimming area at the park beach....
Aligning legacy NLCD land cover maps based on Landsat Collection 1 to Collection 2
Congcong Li, Suming Jin
2026, International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation (149)
The transition from Landsat Collection 1 to Collection 2 introduced significant improvements in radiometric and geometric accuracy. However, the improvements cause location misalignment between the existing Landsat-derived land cover products and the new collection. The legacy National Land Cover Database (NLCD) has been used as a cornerstone land cover source...
Shallow hydrogeologic framework of the Tully Valley mudboil area, Onondaga County, New York
John H. Williams, Neil C. Terry, William M. Kappel, Paul M. Heisig, Robin L. Glas, Joshua C. Woda
2026, Scientific Investigations Report 2026-5129
Mudboils have been documented in the Tully Valley in southern Onondaga County, New York, since the late 1890s. Sediment-laden water from the mudboils flows into Onondaga Creek, which empties into Onondaga Lake at Syracuse 15 miles to the north. Turbidity from the mudboils has degraded the water quality of Onondaga...
Springtime formation of laminated soil carbonate rinds and changes in fluvial terrace soils on orbital timescales at Rio Mesa, Utah, USA
Tyler E. Huth, Thure E. Cerling, David W. Marchetti, Amy L. Ellwein, Shannon A. Mahan, David R. Bowling, Benjamin H. Passey, Victor J. Polyak, Yemane Asmerom
2026, Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems (27)
Laminated soil carbonate rinds are a Quaternary paleoclimate archive whose isotope composition is linked to soil formation conditions. At Rio Mesa, Utah (USA), we investigated the fidelity of rind records in a river terrace setting by determining the seasonal timing of rind formation and testing for inter-record replication. We infer...
Modeling chronic wasting disease transmission risk in mule deer related to habitat characteristics
Erica Meta Christensen, Nathan J. Kleist, David R. Edmunds, Julie A. Heinrichs, D. Joanne Saher, Ashley L. Whipple, Melia DeVivo, Cameron L. Aldridge
2026, PLoS ONE (21)
Chronic wasting disease (CWD) is a prion disease of cervids that spreads to uninfected individuals through direct transmission (contact with infected individuals), vertical transmission (from mother to offspring), or indirect transmission (exposure to contaminated environments). The risk of indirect transmission is unevenly distributed on the landscape, and risk levels are...
Characterizing the long-term (1981–2023) temperature and precipitation dynamics in the Trans-Mountain regions of Kazakhstan, Central Asia
Baktybek Duisebek, Gabriel B. Senay, Talgat Usmanov, Kudaibergen Kyrgyzbay, Janay Sagin, Yerbolat Mukanov, Kanat Samarkhanov, Xuejia Wang, Sulitan Danierhan, Xiaohui Pan
2026, Water (18)
Mountain regions are highly climate-sensitive, yet long-term observational evidence of elevation and seasonal climate dynamics in Central Asia remains limited. This study examines spatiotemporal trends in temperature (Tmean, Tmax, Tmin, and diurnal temperature range [DTR]) and precipitation across Kazakhstan’s transmountain regions using 74 meteorological stations (1981–2023). Data were analyzed using...
Peak-, mean-, and low-streamflow regional-regression equations for natural streamflow in central and western Colorado, 2019
Michael S. Kohn, M. Alisa Mast, Tara A. Gross
2026, Scientific Investigations Report 2025-5047
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), in cooperation with the Colorado Department of Transportation, developed peak-, mean-, and low-streamflow regional-regression equations for estimating various statistics for natural streamflow in hydrologic regions of central and western Colorado. The peak-streamflow regression equations were developed using data from 418 streamgages, consisting of 15,202 years...
Uranium—Deposits, production and resources, market dynamics, and supply chain risks
Mark J. Mihalasky
2026, Fact Sheet 2025-3057
IntroductionInterest in nuclear power for the generation of electricity has risen with the increase in the need for more diverse baseload power, enhanced energy security, and the development of new technologies, such as small modular reactors (SMRs), which could provide power for remote areas, industrial applications, and artificial intelligence...
Cyanobacterial bloom occurrence and emergency department visits for asthma or wheeze, Wisconsin, 2017–2019
Amy M. Lavery, Jordan Murray, Audrey F. Pennington, Blake Schaeffer, Bridget Seegers, Elizabeth D. Hilborn, Keith Loftin, Stephen Scroggins, Lorraine Backer
2026, Environmental Epidemiology (10)
Background: Cyanobacterial harmful algal blooms (cyanoHABs) pose risks to human and animal health.Methods: We investigated the relationship between cyanoHABs and asthma or wheeze-related emergency department (ED) visits near three Wisconsin cities (Green Bay, Madison, and Oshkosh) during 2017–2019. CyanoHAB exposure was approximated using the Cyanobacterial Assessment Network remotely sensed satellite indicator of...
Development of a two-stage lifecycle model to inform the trap-and-haul program for Oncorhynchus kisutch (coho salmon) in the Lewis River, Washington
John M. Plumb, Russell W. Perry
2026, Open-File Report 2026-1004
Restoration of salmon populations in the upper Lewis River Basin, Washington, depends on a trap-and-haul program owing to the Lewis River Hydroelectric Project (hereinafter referred to as “Project”) operated by PacifiCorp and Cowlitz Public Utilities District (hereinafter referred to as “Utilities”), which has been a barrier to salmon passage since...
Fish body midline segmentation using binary search
Robert M.H. Sterling, Elsa Marie-Catherine Goerig, M Buzdalov, Theodore Castro-Santos, O. Akanyeti
2026, Computers and Electronics in Agriculture (248)
Body and caudal fin locomotion is ubiquitous in aquatic vertebrates, and kinematic models describing it are used in robotics, biomechanics and fisheries research. This paper presents a new algorithm to translate continuous body midlines of fish into a series of interconnected segments by identifying favorable joint positions along the body....