Coal biomethanation potential of various ranks from Pakistan: A possible alternative energy source
Aneela Y. Malik, Muhammad Ishtiaq Ali, Asif Jamal, Uzma Farooq, Nazia Khatoon, William H. Orem, Elliott P. Barnhart, John R. SanFilipo, Huan He, Zaixing Huang
2020, Article
The present study investigated the possibility of microbial transformations of coal to gas (biogasification) as an alternative to conventional coal mining because this approach has the potential to be less expensive, cleaner, and providinge greater access to deeper coal resources. Biogasification is often associated with low rank coal such as...
Disentangling the potential effects of land-use and climate change on stream conditions
Kelly O. Maloney, Kevin P. Krause, Claire Buchanan, Lauren Hay, Gregory J. McCabe, Zachary M. Smith, Terry L. Sohl, John A. Young
2020, Global Change Biology (26) 2251-2269
Land‐use and climate change are significantly affecting stream ecosystems, yet understanding of their long‐term impacts is hindered by the few studies that have simultaneously investigated their interaction and high variability among future projections. We modeled possible effects of a suite of 2030, 2060, and 2090 land‐use and climate scenarios on...
Daily stream samples reveal highly complex pesticide occurrence and potential toxicity to aquatic life
Julia E. Norman, Barbara Mahler, Lisa H. Nowell, Peter C. Van Metre, Mark W. Sandstrom, Mark A. Corbin, Yaorong Qian, James F. Pankow, Wentai Luo, Nicholas B. Fitzgerald, William E. Asher, Kevin J. McWhirter
2020, Science of the Total Environment (715)
Transient, acutely toxic concentrations of pesticides in streams can go undetected by fixed-interval sampling programs. Here we compare temporal patterns in occurrence of current-use pesticides in daily composite samples to those in weekly composite and weekly discrete samples of surface water from 14 small stream sites. Samples were collected over...
Effect of environmental factors on the movement of Rainbow Trout in the Deerfield Reservoir System
Jeremy Kientz, Jacob L. Davis, Steven R. Chipps, Gregory Simpson
2020, Journal of FisheriesSciences.com (14) 1-6
Spawning movements and the factors affecting those movements are often of interest to fisheries managers and biologists. The objective of this study was to examine the influence of environmental factors on the movements of an adfluvial Rainbow Trout Oncorhynchus mykiss population in the Black Hills, South Dakota. Three unique strains...
High-resolution airborne geophysical survey of the Shellmound, Mississippi area
Bethany L. Burton, Burke J. Minsley, Benjamin R. Bloss, Wade H. Kress, James R. Rigby, Bruce D. Smith
2020, Scientific Investigations Map 3449
In late February to early March 2018, the U.S. Geological Survey acquired 2,364 line-kilometers (km) of airborne electromagnetic, magnetic, and radiometric data in the Shellmound, Mississippi study area. The purpose of this survey is to contribute high-resolution information about subsurface geologic structure to inform groundwater models, water resource infrastructure studies,...
Using thermal infrared cameras to detect avian chicks at various distances and vegetative coverages
Diann Prosser, Tom Collier, Jeffery D. Sullivan, Katherine Emily Dale, Carl R. Callahan, Peter C. McGowan, Edward Gaylord, Julia M. Geschke, Lucas Howell, Paul R. Marban, Saba Raman
2020, Journal of Fish and Wildlife Management (11) 245-257
Population monitoring of nesting waterbirds often involves frequent entries into the colony, but alternative methods such as local remotely sensed thermal imaging may help reduce disturbance while providing a cost-effective way to survey breeding populations. Such an approach can have high initial costs, however, which may have reduced the number...
Precipitation, temperature, groundwater-level elevation, streamflow, and potential flood storage trends within the Brazos, Colorado, Big Cypress, Guadalupe, Neches, Sulphur, and Trinity River basins in Texas through 2017
Glenn R. Harwell, Jeremy McDowell, Cathina Gunn-Rosas, Brett Garrett
2020, Scientific Investigations Report 2019-5137
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), in cooperation with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), analyzed streamflow trends and streamflow-related variables through 2017 in seven important water-supply basins to provide information that can help water managers with the USACE and river authorities make future water management decisions. The primary purpose...
Seepage investigation of the Rio Grande from below Leasburg Dam, Leasburg, New Mexico, to above El Paso, Texas, 2018
Grady P. Ball, Andrew J. Robertson, Karen Medina Morales
2020, Scientific Investigations Report 2019-5140
Seepage investigations were conducted periodically by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) from 1988 to 1998 and from 2006 to 2015 along a 64-mile reach of the Rio Grande as part of the Mesilla Basin monitoring program. Past studies were conducted during no-flow or low-flow periods. In 2018, a seepage investigation...
Use of underwater videography to quantify conditions utilized by endangered Moapa Dace While spawning
Jack E. Ruggirello, Scott A. Bonar, Olin G. Feuerbacher, Lee H. Simons
2020, North American Journal of Fisheries Management (40) 17-28
Advances in underwater camera technology provide an affordable means to quantify the environmental conditions under which fish spawn. This information is important for investigating spawning ecology, managing habitat, or providing information for captive breeding programs. We deployed 12 modified security cameras underwater to identify environmental conditions related to the spawning...
Effects of elevated sea levels and waves on southern California estuaries during the 2015–2016 El Niño
Madeleine Harvey, Sarah N Giddings, Eric D. Stein, Jeffrey A Crooks, Christine R Whitcraft, Timu W. Gallien, John L. Largier, Liesl Tiefenthaler, Hallee Meltzer, Geno Pawlak, Karen M. Thorne, Karina Johnston, Richard F. Ambrose, Stephen C Schroeter, Henry M. Page, Hany Elwany
2020, Estuaries and Coasts (43) 256-271
The 2015–2016 El Niño provided insight into how low-inflow estuaries might respond to future climate regimes, including high sea levels and more intense waves. High waves and water levels coupled with low rainfall along the Southern California coastline provided the opportunity to examine how extreme ocean...
An agricultural water use package for MODFLOW and GSFLOW
Richard G. Niswonger
2020, Environmental Modeling and Software (125)
The Agricultural Water Use (AG) Package was developed for simulating demand-driven and supply-constrained agricultural water use in MODFLOW and GSFLOW models. The AG Package uses pre-existing hydrologic simulation provided by MODFLOW and GSFLOW. Three options are available for simulating water use...
Extreme mortality and reproductive failure of common murres resulting from the northeast Pacific marine heatwave of 2014-2016
John F. Piatt, Julia K. Parrish, Heather M. Renner, Sarah K. Schoen, Timothy Jones, Mayumi L. Arimitsu, Kathy J. Kuletz, Barbara L. Bodenstein, Marisol Garcia-Reyes, Rebecca Duerr, Robin Corcoran, Robb S.A. Kaler, Gerard J. McChesney, Richard T. Golightly, Heather A. Coletti, Robert M. Suryan, Hillary K. Burgess, Jackie Lindsey, Kirsten Lindquist, Peter Warzybok, Jaime Jahncke, Jan Roletto, William J. Sydeman
2020, PLoS ONE
About 62,000 dead or dying common murres (Uria aalge), the trophically dominant fish-eating seabird of the North Pacific, washed ashore between summer 2015 and spring 2016 on beaches from California to Alaska. Most birds were severely emaciated and, so far, no evidence for anything other than starvation was...
Storage capacity and sedimentation characteristics of the San Antonio Reservoir, California, 2018
Mathieu D. Marineau, Scott Wright, Joan V. Lopez
2020, Scientific Investigations Report 2019-5151
The San Antonio Reservoir is a large water storage facility in Alameda County, California, and is a major component of the Hetch Hetchy Regional Water System (RWS). The RWS is a water-supply system owned and operated by the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC) and provides water for about 2.7...
Estimation of nonlinear water-quality trends in high-frequency monitoring data
Guoxiang Yang, Douglas L. Moyer
2020, Science of the Total Environment (715)
Recent advances in high-frequency water-quality sensors have enabled direct measurements of physical and chemical attributes in rivers and streams nearly continuously. Water-quality trends can be used to identify important watershed-scale changes driven by natural and anthropogenic influences. Statistical methods to estimate trends using high-frequency...
A new sampler for the collection and retrieval of dry dust deposition
J. Brahney, Gregory A. Wetherbee, Graham A. Sexstone, C. Youngbull, P. Strong, Ruth C. Heindel
2020, Aeolian Research (45)
Atmospheric dust can influence biogeochemical cycles, accelerate snowmelt, and affect air, water quality, and human health. Yet, the bulk of atmospherically transported material remains poorly quantified in terms of total mass fluxes and composition. This lack of information stems in part from the challenges associated with measuring dust deposition. Here...
The use of support vectors from support vector machines for hydrometeorologic monitoring network analyses
William H. Asquith
2020, Journal of Hydrology (583)
Hydrometeorologic monitoring networks are ubiquitous in contemporary earth-system science. Network stakeholders often inquire about the importance of sites and their locations when discussing funding and monitoring design. Support vector machines (SVMs) can be useful by their assigning each monitoring site as either a support or nonsupport vector. A potentiometric surface...
Soil surface elevation dynamics in a mangrove-to-marsh ecotone characterized by vegetation shifts
Rebecca J. Howard, Andrew From, Ken W. Krauss, Kimberly D. Andres, Nicole Cormier, Larry K. Allain, Michael Savarese
2020, Hydrobiologia (847) 1087-1106
Mangrove forest encroachment into coastal marsh habitats has been described in subtropical regions worldwide in recent decades. To better understand how soil processes may influence vegetation change, we studied soil surface elevation change, accretion rates, and soil subsurface change across a coastal salinity gradient in Florida, USA, an area with...
Pulsed flow-through auto-feeding beaker systems for the laboratory culture of juvenile freshwater mussels
James L. Kunz, Eric Brunson, M. Christopher Barnhart, Elizabeth A. Glidewell, Ning Wang, Christopher G. Ingersoll
2020, Aquaculture (520)
Newly metamorphosed freshwater mussels are small and delicate, so that captive laboratory culture presents challenges for handling; for maintenance of suitable microhabitat, water quality, and food; and for avoidance of competitors and predators. To address these challenges, a new pulsed flow-through auto-feeding beaker system was developed for culturing juvenile mussels....
A round-robin evaluation of the repeatability and reproducibility of environmental DNA assays for dreissenid mussels
Adam J. Sepulveda, Patrick R. Hutchins, Craig Jackson, Carl O. Ostberg, Matthew Laramie, Jon Amberg, Timothy D. Counihan, Andrew B. Hoegh, David S. Pilliod
2020, Environmental DNA (2) 446-459
Resource managers may be hesitant to make decisions based on environmental (e)DNA results alone since eDNA is an indirect method of species detection. One way to reduce the uncertainty of eDNA is to identify laboratory‐based protocols that ensure repeatable and reproducible results. We conducted a double‐blind round‐robin analysis of probe‐based...
Walleye growth declines following zebra mussel and Bythotrephes invasion
Tyler D. Ahrenstorff, Gretchen J. A. Hansen, Bethany J. Bethke, Josh Dumke, Jodie Hirsch, Katya E. Kovalenko, Jaime F. LeDuc, Ryan P Maki, Heidi Rantala, Tyler Wagner
2020, Biological Invasions (22) 1481-1495
Invasive species represent a threat to aquatic ecosystems globally; however, impacts can be heterogenous across systems. Documented impacts of invasive zebra mussels (Dreissena polymorpha) and spiny water fleas (Bythotrephes cederströmii; hereafter Bythotrephes) on native fishes are variable and context dependent across locations and time periods. Here, we use a hierarchical Bayesian analysis...
Mercury and selenium concentrations in fishes of the Upper Colorado River Basin, southwestern United States: A retrospective assessment
Natalie K. Day, Travis S. Schmidt, James Roberts, Barbara C. Osmundson, James Willacker, Collin A. Eagles-Smith
2020, PLoS ONE (15)
Mercury (Hg) and selenium (Se) are contaminants of concern for fish in the Upper Colorado River Basin (UCRB). We explored Hg and Se in fish tissues (2,324 individuals) collected over 50 years (1962–2011) from the UCRB. Samples include native and non-native fish collected from lotic waterbodies spanning 7 major tributaries...
Effects of montane watershed development on vulnerability of domestic groundwater supply during drought
Zeno F. Levy, Miranda S. Fram, Kirsten Faulkner, Charles N. Alpers, Evelyn M Soltero, Kimberly A. Taylor
2020, Journal of Hydrology (583)
Climate change is expected to reduce recharge to montane aquifers in the western United States, but it is unclear how this will impact groundwater resources in watersheds where intensive surface-water development has disrupted the natural hydrologic regime. To better understand sources of recharge and associated vulnerabilities of groundwater supply in...
Phosphorus, nitrogen and dissolved organic carbon fluxes from sediments in freshwater rivermouths entering Green Bay (Lake Michigan; USA)
James H. Larson, William F. James, Faith A. Fitzpatrick, Paul C. Frost, Mary Anne Evans, Paul C. Reneau, Marguerite A. Xenopoulos
2020, Biogeochemistry (147) 179-197
Transitional areas between ecosystem types are often active biogeochemically due to resource limitation changes. Lotic-to-lentic transitions in freshwaters appear active biogeochemically, but few studies have directly measured nutrient processing rates to assess whether processing within the rivermouth is important for load estimates or the local communities. We measured oxic fluxes...
Seasonal drivers of chemical and hydrological patterns in roadside infiltration-based green infrastructure
Angela R. Mullins, Daniel J Bain, Erin Pfeil McCullough, Kristina G. Hopkins, S. Lavin, Erin Copeland
2020, Science of the Total Environment (714)
Infiltration-based green infrastructure has become a popular means of reducing stormwater hazards in urban areas. However, the long-term effects of green infrastructure on the geochemistry of roadside environments are poorly defined, particularly given the considerable roadside legacy metal contamination from historic industrial activity and vehicle emissions (e.g., Pb). Most current...
Calcite precipitation in Lake Powell reduces alkalinity and total salt loading to the Lower Colorado River Basin
Bridget R. Deemer, Edward G. Stets, Charles B. Yackulic
2020, Limnology and Oceanography (65) 1439-1455
Reservoirs can retain and transform carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, and silica, but less is known about their effects on other biogeochemically relevant solutes. The salinization of freshwater ecosystems is a growing concern in many regions, and the role of reservoirs in salinity transport is an important research frontier. Here, we examine...
