Evaluation of machine learning approaches for predicting streamflow metrics across the conterminous United States
Ken Eng, David M. Wolock
2022, Scientific Investigations Report 2022-5058
Few regional or national scale studies have evaluated machine learning approaches for predicting streamflow metrics at ungaged locations. Most such studies are limited by the number of dimensions of the streamflow regime investigated. This study, in contrast, provides a comprehensive evaluation of the streamflow regime based on three widely available...
Examination of dissolved uranium concentrations in regional shallow groundwater relative to Operable Unit 8 of the Denver Radium Superfund Site
Carleton R. Bern
2022, Scientific Investigations Report 2022-5085
A radium industry existed between about 1914 and 1920 in Denver, Colorado, with operations located along the South Platte River. Sites associated with that industry were contaminated with radium and uranium processing residues and were incorporated into clean-up efforts as Operating Units (OUs) of the Denver Radium Superfund Site. Concentrations...
Water-quality data and trends in the Rapid Creek Basin, South Dakota, 1970–2020
Wyatt S. Tatge, Galen K. Hoogestraat, Rochelle A. Nustad
2022, Scientific Investigations Report 2022-5086
Surface-water-quality data in the Rapid Creek Basin in South Dakota were compiled to assess basic trends in the water quality of Rapid Creek. Spatial and temporal patterns in water quality were described for major ions, sediment, total suspended solids, nutrients, field measurements, bacteria, and select metals for the period of...
Glacial geology and hydrogeology of valley-fill aquifers in the Oneonta area, Otsego and Delaware Counties, New York
Paul M. Heisig, P. Jay Fleisher
2022, Scientific Investigations Report 2022-5069
The glacial geology and hydrogeology of valley-fill aquifers and their surrounding uplands are described within a 112-square-mile area in southern Otsego and northwestern Delaware Counties, New York, centered around the City of Oneonta. The major valleys include those of the Susquehanna River, Otego Creek, Charlotte Creek, and Schenevus Creek. A...
Water-quality conditions and constituent loads, water years 2013–19, and water-quality trends, water years 1983–2019, in the Scituate Reservoir drainage area, Rhode Island
Alana B. Spaetzel, Kirk Smith
2022, Scientific Investigations Report 2022-5043
The Scituate Reservoir is the primary source of drinking water for more than 60 percent of the population of Rhode Island. From October 1, 1982, to September 30, 2019, water years (WYs) 1983–2019 (a water year is the period between October 1 and September 30 and is designated by the...
Comparison of the results of enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) to mass-spectrometry based analytical methods for six unregulated contaminants in source water and finished drinking-water samples
Aliesha L. Krall, Sarah M. Elliott, Jane R. de Lambert, Stephen W. Robertson
2022, Scientific Investigations Report 2022-5066
Regulatory entities, such as the Minnesota Department of Health, monitor public water systems for conformance with Federal and State monitoring requirements and water-quality standards. Although some contaminants have Federal and (or) State regulations and guidance values, many contaminants, such as pesticides and pharmaceuticals, are unregulated in that only non-enforceable health-based...
Using microbial source tracking to identify fecal contamination sources in South Oyster Bay on Long Island, New York
Tristen N. Tagliaferri, Shawn C. Fisher, Christopher M. Kephart, Natalie Cheung, Ariel P. Reed, Robert J. Welk
2022, Scientific Investigations Report 2022-5082
The U.S. Geological Survey worked in cooperation with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation to assess the potential sources of fecal contamination entering South Oyster Bay, a shallow embayment on the southern shore of Long Island, New York. Water samples are routinely collected by the New York State...
Status of water-level altitudes and long-term water-level changes in the Chicot and Evangeline (undifferentiated) and Jasper aquifers, greater Houston area, Texas, 2021
Christopher L. Braun, Jason K. Ramage
2022, Scientific Investigations Report 2022-5065
Since the early 1900s, groundwater withdrawn from the primary aquifers that compose the Gulf Coast aquifer system—the Chicot and Evangeline (undifferentiated) and Jasper aquifers—has been the primary source of water in the greater Houston area, Texas. This report, prepared by the U.S. Geological Survey in cooperation with the Harris-Galveston Subsidence...
Treatment of the Chicot and Evangeline aquifers as a single hydrogeologic unit and use of geostatistical interpolation methods to develop gridded surfaces of water-level altitudes and water-level changes in the Chicot and Evangeline aquifers (undifferentiated) and Jasper aquifer, greater Houston area, Texas, 2021
Jason K. Ramage, Christopher L. Braun, John H. Ellis
2022, Scientific Investigations Report 2022-5064
The greater Houston area of Texas includes approximately 11,000 square miles and encompasses all or part of 11 counties (Harris, Galveston, Fort Bend, Montgomery, Brazoria, Chambers, Grimes, Liberty, San Jacinto, Walker, and Waller). From the early 1900s until the mid-1970s, groundwater withdrawn from the three primary aquifers that compose the...
Sediment and nutrient retention on a reconnected floodplain of an Upper Mississippi River tributary, 2013–2018
Lynn A. Bartsch, Rebecca M. Kreiling, Lance R. Gruhn, Jessica D. Garrett, William B. Richardson, Greg M. Nalley
2022, Scientific Investigations Report 2022-5030
The connection of rivers with their floodplains has been greatly reduced in agricultural drainage basins, especially in the Upper Mississippi River Basin. The restriction of the Mississippi River from its floodplain has reduced the sediment trapping and nutrient deposition capabilities of the floodplain, exacerbating water quality problems in the river...
Longitudinal water-temperature profiles in Mill Creek, Mason County, Washington
Andrew S. Gendaszek, Richard W. Sheibley, Erica Marbet, Joe Puhn, Catherine Seguin
2022, Scientific Investigations Report 2022-5063
In streams supporting Pacific salmon (Oncorhynchus spp.) within the southern Puget Lowland, high water temperatures during late summer are a primary water-quality concern. The metabolic rates of fish and other ectothermic (in other words, cold-blooded) species are regulated by water temperature; salmon and other cold-water fish have specific thermal...
Element concentrations and grain size of sediment from the Similkameen River above Enloe Dam (Enloe Reservoir) near Oroville, Washington, 2019
Stephen E. Cox, Christopher A. Curran, Andrew R. Spanjer, Chad C. Opatz, Renee K. Takesue, J. Lynn Bell
2022, Scientific Investigations Report 2022-5073
In 2019, the U.S. Geological Survey conducted a reconnaissance survey of concentrations of 41 trace elements present in bed sediment in the reservoir on the Similkameen River upstream from Enloe Dam, near Oroville, Washington. The Similkameen River drains a watershed containing highly mineralized geologic deposits with current (2019) and...
The 2018 eruption of Mount Veniaminof, Alaska
Christopher F. Waythomas, Hannah R. Dietterich, Gabrielle Tepp, Taryn M. Lopez, Matthew W. Loewen
2022, Scientific Investigations Report 2022-5075
The 2018 eruption of Mount Veniaminof occurred from September 3–4 to December 27, lasting about 114 days. This report summarizes the types of volcanic unrest that accompanied the eruption and provides a chronology of events and observations. Information about the 2018 eruption was derived from geophysical instrumentation on or near...
Field-trip guide to continental arc to rift volcanism of the southern Rocky Mountains—Southern Rocky Mountain, Taos Plateau, and Jemez Mountains volcanic fields of southern Colorado and northern New Mexico
Ren A. Thompson, Kenzie J. Turner, Peter W. Lipman, John A. Wolff, Michael A. Dungan
2022, Scientific Investigations Report 2017-5022-R
The southern Rocky Mountains of northern New Mexico and southern Colorado preserve the Oligocene to Pleistocene record of North American continental arc to rift volcanism. The 35–23 million year old (Ma) southern Rocky Mountain volcanic field (SRMVF), spectacularly preserved in the San Juan Mountains of southern Colorado, records the evolution...
Water-quality trends in surface waters of the Jemez River and Middle Rio Grande Basin from Cochiti to Albuquerque, New Mexico, 2004–19
Allison K. Flickinger, Zachary M. Shephard
2022, Scientific Investigations Report 2022-5062
Municipal water supply for Albuquerque, New Mexico, is provided, in part, through diversion of surface water from the Rio Grande by way of the San Juan-Chama Drinking Water Project diversion structure. Changes in surface-water quality along the Rio Grande and its tributaries upstream from the San Juan-Chama Drinking Water Project...
Trends in groundwater levels, and orthophosphate and nitrate concentrations in the Middle Snake River Region, south-central Idaho
Kenneth D. Skinner
2022, Scientific Investigations Report 2022-5060
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) evaluated nitrate and orthophosphate concentrations in groundwater for temporal trends (monotonic and step trends) for the middle Snake River region (Cassia, Gooding, Jerome, Lincoln, Minidoka, and Twin Falls Counties) in south-central Idaho using the Regional Kendall test (monotonic trends) and the Wilcoxon signed rank...
Light attenuation and erosion characteristics of fine sediments in a highly turbid, shallow, Great Basin Lake—Malheur Lake, Oregon, 2017–18
Tamara M. Wood, Cassandra D. Smith
2022, Scientific Investigations Report 2022-5056
Malheur Lake is a large, shallow, turbid lake in southeastern Oregon that fluctuates widely in surface area in response to yearly precipitation and climatic cycles. High suspended-sediment concentrations (SSCs) likely are negatively affecting the survival of aquatic plants by reducing the intensity of solar radiation reaching the plants, thus...
Update and recalibration of the Rio Grande Transboundary Integrated Hydrologic Model, New Mexico and Texas, United States, and northern Chihuahua, Mexico
Andre B. Ritchie, Amy E. Galanter, Allison K. Flickinger, Zachary M. Shephard, Ian M. Ferguson
2022, Scientific Investigations Report 2022-5045
The Rio Grande Transboundary Integrated Hydrologic Model (RGTIHM) was developed through an interagency effort between the U.S. Geological Survey and the Bureau of Reclamation to provide a tool for analyzing the hydrologic system response to the historical evolution of water use and potential changes in water supplies and demands in...
Geohydrology and water quality of the northern and central parts of the Tug Hill glacial aquifer, Jefferson and Oswego Counties, north-central New York
Todd S. Miller, Benjamin N. Fisher, William M. Kappel
2022, Scientific Investigations Report 2022-5039
The northern and central parts of the Tug Hill glacial aquifer consist of a 29-mile-long, crescent-shaped, mixture of glaciofluvial, glaciolacustrine, and recent alluvial deposits of predominantly sand and gravel on the western side of the Tug Hill Plateau in Jefferson and Oswego Counties in north-central New York. Approximately 11,400 people...
Assessment of fecal contamination sources to Alley Creek, Queens County, New York, August 2020–June 2021
Shawn C. Fisher, Christopher M. Kephart, Natalie Cheung, Tristen N. Tagliaferri
2022, Scientific Investigations Report 2022-5068
Alley Creek, a tributary to Little Neck Bay in Queens County, New York, has been designated by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation as impaired (Class I) for fecal coliform because of pollution from combined sewer overflow, including stormwater runoff. The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the...
Seasonal and long-term clarity trend assessment of Lake Tahoe, California–Nevada
Ramon C. Naranjo, Paul Work, Alan Heyvaert, Geoffrey Schladow, Alicia Cortes, Shohei Watanabe, Lidia Tanaka, Sebnem Elci
2022, Scientific Investigations Report 2022-5070
The clarity of Lake Tahoe, observed using a Secchi disk on a regular basis since the late 1960s, continues to be a sentinel metric of lake health. Water clarity is influenced by physical and biological processes and has declined in the five decades of monitoring, revealing differences between summer (June–September)...
Occurrence of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances and inorganic analytes in groundwater and surface water used as sources for public water supply in West Virginia
Mitchell A. McAdoo, Gregory T. Connock, Terence Messinger
2022, Scientific Investigations Report 2022-5067
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are widely observed anthropogenic compounds found in water supplies worldwide and increasingly linked with adverse health effects in humans. In 2019, the West Virginia Legislature recognized the contamination risk to public source-water supplies posed by PFAS and passed a resolution that required a statewide PFAS...
2021 assessment of the Joint Fire Science Program’s Fire Science Exchange Network
Natasha Collins, James Meldrum, Rudy Schuster, Nina Burkardt
2022, Scientific Investigations Report 2022-5052
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), on behalf of the Joint Fire Science Program (JFSP), conducted an evaluation of the Fire Science Exchange Network (FSEN), which connects wildland fire scientists and practitioners through 15 individual exchanges across the United States to help address complex wildfire needs and challenges. The study was...
A structured decision-making framework for managing cyanobacterial harmful algal blooms in New York State parks
Jennifer L. Graham, Gabriella M. Cebada Mora, Rebecca M. Gorney, Lianne C. Ball, Claudia Mengelt, Michael C. Runge
2022, Scientific Investigations Report 2022-5053
Cyanobacteria are increasingly a global water-quality concern because of the potential for these organisms to develop into potentially harmful blooms that affect ecological, economic, and public health. Cyanobacterial harmful algal blooms (CyanoHABs) can lead to a decrease in water quality and affect many of the recreational and ecological benefits of...
Characterization of and temporal changes in groundwater quality of the Upper Black Squirrel Creek Basin, El Paso County, Colorado, 2018–20
Zachary D. Kisfalusi, Nancy J. Bauch, Carleton R. Bern
2022, Scientific Investigations Report 2022-5061
In 2018–20, the U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with Upper Black Squirrel Creek Ground Water Management District, sampled 48 wells for Phase III of a multiphase plan investigating groundwater quality in the alluvial aquifer of the Upper Black Squirrel Creek Basin (UBSB), El Paso County, Colorado. Results for samples collected...
