Modeling occupancy of rare stream fish species in the upper Cumberland and Kentucky River Basins
Nathaniel P. Hitt, Karli M. Rogers, Karmann Kessler, Hannah E. Macmillan
2020, Open-File Report 2020-1100
Biological conservation often requires an understanding of how environmental conditions affect species occurrence and detection probabilities. We used a hierarchical framework to evaluate these effects for several Appalachian stream fish species of conservation concern: Chrosomus cumberlandensis (BSD; blackside dace), Etheostoma sagitta (CAD; Cumberland arrow darter), and Etheostoma spilotum (KAD; Kentucky...
Use of time domain electromagnetic soundings and borehole electromagnetic induction logs to delineate the freshwater/saltwater interface on southwestern Long Island, New York, 2015–17
Frederick Stumm, Michael D. Como, Marie A. Zuck
2020, Open-File Report 2020-1093
The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, used surface and borehole geophysical methods to delineate the freshwater/saltwater interface in coastal plain aquifers along the southwestern part of Long Island, New York. Over pumping of groundwater in the early 20th century combined with...
Development of a method to identify complex wells and assess the accuracy of basin withdrawals in Utah
Brittany L. Gold, Cory E. Angeroth, Thomas M. Marston
2020, Open-File Report 2020-1106
Power consumption coefficients (PCCs) and dedicated flowmeter records for irrigation wells in three Utah groundwater basins were analyzed to develop a method to better characterize the accuracy of annual groundwater withdrawal estimates. The PCC method has been used by the U.S. Geological Survey in Utah since 1963 as a way...
Distribution and abundance of Aquila chrysaetos (golden eagles) in East Contra Costa County Habitat Conservation Plan/Natural Community Conservation Plan area, California
J. David Wiens, Patrick S. Kolar, Douglas A. Bell
2020, Open-File Report 2020-1107
The East Contra Costa County Habitat Conservation Plan/Natural Community Conservation Plan (HCP/NCCP) Preserve System was designed to protect and enhance ecological diversity and function in eastern Contra Costa County, California. Aquila chrysaetos (golden eagle) is a special-status species expected to benefit from biological goals of the HCP/NCCP. As part of...
Impacts of periodic dredging on macroinvertebrate prey availability for benthic foraging fishes in central San Francisco Bay, California
Susan E. W. De La Cruz, Isa Woo, Laurie Hall, Alison Flanagan, Hannah Mittelstaedt
2020, Open-File Report 2020-1086
BackgroundBecause of its importance for species covered under Federal Fishery Management Plans (FMPs), the San Francisco Bay (SFB) estuary has been designated as Essential Fish Habitat (EFH) under the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (MSA; 16 United States Code §18559b). Within this estuary, benthic macroinvertebrate communities provide important...
Cottonwoods, water, and people-Integrating analysis of tree rings with observations of elders from the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho Tribes of the Wind River Reservation, Wyoming
Shannon M. McNeeley, Jonathan M. Friedman, Tyler A. Beeton, Richard D. Thaxton
2020, Open-File Report 2020-1072
We assessed the history of flow and riparian ecosystem change along the Wind River using cottonwood tree-ring data, streamgage records, historical temperature and precipitation data, drought indices, and local observations and Traditional Ecological Knowledge from elders of the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho Tribes of the Wind River Reservation, Wyoming....
Assessment of dissolved-selenium concentrations and loads in the Lower Gunnison River Basin, Colorado, as part of the Selenium Management Program, 2011–17
Mark F. Henneberg
2020, Open-File Report 2020-1078
The Gunnison Basin Selenium Management Program implemented a water-quality monitoring network in 2011 to measure concentrations of selenium in the lower Gunnison River Basin in Colorado. Selenium is a trace element that bioaccumulates in aquatic food chains. Selenium is essential for life, but elevated amounts can cause reproductive failure, deformities,...
Cliff Feature Delineation Tool and Baseline Builder version 1.0 user guide
Alexander C. Seymour, Cheryl J. Hapke, Jonathan A. Warrick
2020, Open-File Report 2020-1070
Coastal cliffs constitute 80 percent of the world’s coastline, with seacliffs fronting a large proportion of the U.S. West Coast shoreline, particularly in California. Erosion of coastal cliffs can threaten infrastructure and human life, yet the spatial and temporal scope of cliff studies have been limited by cumbersome traditional methods...
Understanding and documenting the scientific basis of selenium ecological protection in support of site-specific guidelines development for Lake Koocanusa, Montana, U.S.A., and British Columbia, Canada
Theresa S. Presser, David L. Naftz
2020, Open-File Report 2020-1098
Modeling of ecosystems is a part of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s protocol for developing site-specific selenium guidelines for protection of aquatic life. Selenium as an environmental contaminant is known to bioaccumulate and cause reproductive effects in fish and wildlife. Here we apply a modeling methodology—ecosystem-scale selenium modeling—to understand and document...
Kelp forest monitoring at Naval Base Ventura County, San Nicolas Island, California: Fall 2018 and Spring 2019, fifth annual report
Michael C. Kenner, Joseph A. Tomoleoni
2020, Open-File Report 2020-1091
IntroductionKelp forests and rocky reefs are among the most recognized marine ecosystems and provide the primary habitat for several species of fishes, invertebrates, and algal assemblages (Stephens and others, 2006). In addition, kelp forests have been shown to be important carbon dioxide sinks (Wilmers and others, 2012) and are...
Characterization of peak streamflow and stages at selected streamgages in eastern and northeastern Oklahoma from the May to June 2019 flood event—With an emphasis on flood peaks downstream from dams and on tributaries to the Arkansas River
Jason M. Lewis, David J. Williams, Sarah J. Harris, A.R. Trevisan
2020, Open-File Report 2020-1090
As much as 22 inches of rain fell in Oklahoma in May 2019, resulting in historic flooding along the Arkansas River and its tributaries in eastern and northeastern Oklahoma. The flooding along the Arkansas River and its tributaries that began in May continued into June 2019. Peaks of record were...
Repurposing a hindcast simulation of the 1926 Great Miami Hurricane, south Florida
M. Dennis Krohn, Eric D. Swain, Catherine A. Langtimm, Jayantha Obeysekera
2020, Open-File Report 2020-1010
Hydrodynamic model hindcasts of the surface water and groundwater of the Everglades and the greater Miami, Florida, area were used to simulate hydrology using estimated storm surge height, wind field, and rainfall for the Great Miami Hurricane (GMH), which struck on September 18, 1926. Ranked estimates of losses from hurricanes...
Adjusted geomagnetic data—Theoretical basis and validation
E. Joshua Rigler, Abram E. Claycomb
2020, Open-File Report 2020-1053
Adjusted geomagnetic data are magnetometer measurements with provisional correction factors applied such that vector quantities are oriented in a local Cartesian frame in which the X axis points north, the Y axis points east, and the Z axis points down. These correction factors are determined from so-called absolute measurements, which...
Fate and behavior tools related to inland spill response—Workshop on the U.S. Geological Survey’s role in Federal science support
Daniel J. Sullivan, Faith A. Fitzpatrick
2020, Open-File Report 2020-1063
Executive SummaryThere is a growing body of tools available for science support for determining the fate and behavior of industrial and agricultural chemicals that are rapidly injected (“spilled”) into aquatic environments. A 2-day roundtable-style workshop was held by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in Middleton, Wisconsin, in December 2017 to...
Ecological forecasting—21st century science for 21st century management
John B. Bradford, Jake Weltzin, Molly L. McCormick, Jill Baron, Zack Bowen, Sky Bristol, Daren M. Carlisle, Theresa Crimmins, Paul C. Cross, Joe DeVivo, Mike Dietze, Mary Freeman, Jason Goldberg, Mevin Hooten, Leslie Hsu, Karen Jenni, Jennifer L. Keisman, Jonathan G. Kennen, Kathy Lee, David P. Lesmes, Keith A. Loftin, Brian W. Miller, Peter S. Murdoch, Jana Newman, Karen L. Prentice, Imtiaz Rangwala, Jordan Read, Jennifer Sieracki, Helen Sofaer, Steve Thur, Gordon Toevs, Francisco Werner, C. LeAnn White, Timothy White, Mark T. Wiltermuth
2020, Open-File Report 2020-1073
Natural resource managers are coping with rapid changes in both environmental conditions and ecosystems. Enabled by recent advances in data collection and assimilation, short-term ecological forecasting may be a powerful tool to help resource managers anticipate impending near-term changes in ecosystem conditions or dynamics. Managers may use the information in...
FLOwPER user guide—For collection of FLOw PERmanence field observations
Kristin L. Jaeger, Jonathan Burnett, Emily D. Heaston, Steve M. Wondzell, Nathan Chelgren, Jason B. Dunham, Sherri Johnson, Mike Brown
2020, Open-File Report 2020-1075
The accurate mapping of streams and their streamflow conditions in terms of presence or absence of surface water is important to both understanding physical, chemical, and biological processes in streams and to managing land, water, and ecological resources. This document describes a field form, FLOwPER (FLOw PERmanence), available within a...
Mineral resource database for deposits related to the Mesoproterozoic Midcontinent Rift System, United States and Canada
Laurel G. Woodruff, Klaus J. Schulz, Connie L. Dicken, Suzanne W. Nicholson
2020, Open-File Report 2020-1069
The Midcontinent Rift System (MRS) of North America is one of the world’s largest continental rifts and has an age of 1.1 Ga (giga-annum). The MRS hosts a diverse suite of magmatic and hydrothermal mineral deposits in the Lake Superior region where rift rocks are exposed at or near the...
Calibration of the U.S. Geological Survey National Crustal Model
Oliver S. Boyd
2020, Open-File Report 2020-1052
The U.S. Geological Survey National Crustal Model (NCM) is being developed to include spatially varying estimates of site response in seismic hazard assessments. Primary outputs of the NCM are continuous velocity and density profiles from the Earth’s surface to the mantle transition zone at 410-kilometer (km) depth for each location...
seawaveQ—An R package providing a model and utilities for analyzing trends in chemical concentrations in streams with a seasonal wave (seawave) and adjustment for streamflow (Q) and other ancillary variables, version 2.0.0
Karen R. Ryberg, Benjamin C. York
2020, Open-File Report 2020-1082
The seawaveQ R package provides functionality and help to fit a parametric regression model, SEAWAVE-Q, to pesticide concentration data from stream-water samples to assess trends. The model incorporates the strong seasonality and high degree of censoring common in pesticide data, and users can incorporate numerous ancillary variables such as streamflow...
Chemical constituent concentrations in stream water, streambed sediment, and soils of Fort Belvoir, Virginia—A characterization of ambient conditions in 2019
Karen C. Rice, Douglas B. Chambers
2020, Open-File Report 2020-1059
IntroductionThe U.S. Army Fort Belvoir (FTBL) installation is on the banks of the Potomac River in Fairfax County, northeastern Virginia. The installation was founded by the U.S. Army during World War I. It has been home to a variety of military organizations over the course of its more than 100-year...
A standard operating procedure for the preparation of purposely killed juvenile salmon used to test survival model assumptions
Ryan G. Tomka, Theresa L. Liedtke, Conrad Frost, Collin D. Smith
2020, Open-File Report 2020-1083
This document describes a standard operating procedure (SOP) for the preparation of purposely killed juvenile salmon, implanted with telemetry transmitters, to be released into rivers, lakes, or streams to test one of the survival model assumptions. Procedures for releases of purposely killed fish (hereinafter dead fish releases) were developed by...
Monitoring and real-time modeling of Escherichia coli bacteria for the Chattahoochee River, Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area, Georgia, 2000–2019
Brent T. Aulenbach, Anna M. McKee
2020, Open-File Report 2020-1048
The Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area (CRNRA) is a National Park Service unit/park with 48 miles of urban waterway in the Atlanta metropolitan area. The Chattahoochee River within the CRNRA is a popular place for water-based recreation but is known to periodically experience elevated levels of fecal-coliform bacteria associated with...
Pesticide concentrations associated with augmented flow pulses in the Yolo Bypass and Cache Slough Complex, California
James L. Orlando, Matt De Parsia, Corey J. Sanders, Michelle L. Hladik, Jared Frantzich
2020, Open-File Report 2020-1076
Surface-water and suspended-sediment samples were collected and analyzed by the U.S. Geological Survey for multiple current-use pesticides and pesticide degradates approximately every 2 weeks at up to five sites in the Yolo Bypass and Cache Slough Complex before, during, and after augmented flow pulses in summer and fall 2016 and...
Establishing Forster’s Tern (Sterna forsteri) nesting sites at pond A16 using social attraction for the South Bay Salt Pond restoration project
C. Alex Hartman, Joshua T. Ackerman, Mark P. Herzog, Yiwei Wang, Cheryl Strong
2020, Open-File Report 2020-1081
Forster’s terns (Sterna forsteri), historically one of the most numerous colonial-breeding waterbirds in South San Francisco Bay, California, have experienced recent decreases in the number of nesting colonies and overall breeding population size. The South Bay Salt Pond Restoration Project aims to restore 50–90 percent of former salt evaporation ponds...
Effects of barred owl (Strix varia) removal on population demography of northern spotted owls (Strix occidentalis caurina) in Washington and Oregon—2019 annual report
J. David Wiens, Katie M. Dugger, Damon B. Lesmeister, Krista E. Dilione, David C. Simon
2020, Open-File Report 2020-1089
Strix occidentalis caurina (northern spotted owl; hereinafter referred to as spotted owl) have rapidly declined throughout the subspecies’ geographic range. Competition with invading Strix varia (barred owl) has been identified as an immediate cause of those declines. A pilot study in California showed that removal of barred owls coupled with...
