Search Results

A study was conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, to reconstruct streamflows for use in the RiverWare model. Methods and data used to estimate daily reconstructed streamflows at 53 sites in selected subbasins in northern New Jersey and southeastern New...

ivers and streams are highly vulnerable to fragmentation from roads due to their prevalence in the landscape. Road-stream crossings are far more numerous than other anthropogenic barriers such as dams; these crossing structures (culverts, bridges, fords, and tide gates) have been demonstrated to impede the passage of aquatic organisms. However,...

The sediments of Sinclair Inlet, in Puget Sound, Washington, have elevated levels of contaminants including mercury. The Bremerton Naval Complex is adjacent to Sinclair Inlet, and has known areas of historical soil mercury contamination. The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the U.S. Navy, has been investigating the potential for...

Changes in land-use practices and the extirpation (local extinction) of beaver populations in the early 20th century during European settlement are believed to have resulted in many changes in how streams in the Western United States function. Some of the negative changes that have resulted include stream channelization, soil erosion,...

Conceptual and numerical models were developed to understand and simulate monthly flow-weighted dissolved-solids concentrations in the Colorado River at Imperial Dam. The ability to simulate dissolved-solids concentrations at this location will help the Bureau of Reclamation satisfy the binational agreement on the volume and salinity of Colorado River water delivered...

This report presents geochemical data for surface water, streambed sediment, and fish tissue samples collected during low-flow conditions in 20 to 24 Sierra Nevada streams during 2011 and 2012. The dataset is part of a larger study designed to assess the factors that control mercury concentrations in fish tissue and...

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) uses Maintenance of Variance Extension Type 1 (MOVE.1) regression to transfer streamflows measured at long-term continuous-record streamgaging stations to partial-record (PR) streamgaging stations where intermittent base-flow measurements are available. MOVE.1 regression is used widely throughout the hydrologic community to extend historic low flows and low-flow...

The maps and graphs in this summary describe national streamflow conditions for water year 2017 (October 1, 2016, to September 30, 2017) in the context of streamflow ranks relative to the 88-year period of 1930–2017, unless otherwise noted. The illustrations are based on observed data from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS)...

Green infrastructure refers to a range of urban stormwater management tools that can be flexibly implemented. These practices can aid in mitigating the negative impacts of runoff by increasing catchment detention capacity. We studied two engineered rain gardens (Cleveland OH) that were designed to infiltrate and detain direct runoff volume...

From December 2 to 4, 2015, NatureServe and the U.S. Geological Survey organized and hosted a biodiversity and ecological informatics workshop at the U.S. Department of the Interior in Washington, D.C. The workshop objective was to identify user-driven future directions and areas of collaboration in advanced applications of environmental data...

Rapid population growth and declining annual recharge to aquifers in the upper Santa Cruz Basin area of southern Arizona, have increased the demand for additional groundwater resources. This demand is predicted to escalate in the future because of higher temperatures, longer droughts, less aquifer recharge, and decreased river and stream...

Digital flood-inundation maps for an 8-mile (mi) reach of the Huron River near Hamburg, Michigan (station number 04172000), from downstream of Rickett Road to Strawberry Lake, were created by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), in cooperation with Green Oak and Hamburg Townships, Michigan, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers....

An exploratory discrete Bayesian network (BN) was developed to assess the potential of this type of model for estimating the magnitudes and uncertainties of an arbitrary subset of unmeasured water-quality parameters given the measured complement of parameters historically measured at a U.S. Geological Survey streamgage. Water-quality data for 27 water-quality...

Nitrate concentrations in the Cedar River in Iowa and Minnesota have increased from an average of less than 1.0 milligram per liter in the early 1900s to more than 5.0 milligrams per liter in the 2000s and have resulted in periodic water-quality impairment of the river. Spatial differences and temporal...

The Brandon Road Lock and Dam on the Des Plaines River near Joliet, Illinois, has been identified for potential implementation of aquatic nuisance species (ANS) control measures. To provide additional information concerning the flow hydraulics and mixing characteristics of the lock and downstream approach channel, the U.S. Geological Survey performed...

The U.S. Geological Survey’s Soil-Water-Balance (SWB) code was developed as a tool to estimate distribution and timing of net infiltration out of the root zone by means of an approach that uses readily available data and minimizes user effort required to begin a SWB application. SWB calculates other components of...

Sandbars along the Colorado River are used as campsites by river runners and hikers and are an important recreational resource within Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona. Regulation of the flow of river water through Glen Canyon Dam has reduced the amount of sediment available to be deposited as sandbars, has...

Surface water samples were collected by the U.S. Geological Survey and multiple cooperators during base flow/irrigation runoff and storm runoff conditions from 12 sites throughout California, over 2 consecutive years beginning in April 2015, from both urban and agriculturally dominated watersheds. Water samples were analyzed by gas chromatography/mass spectrometry and...

The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality, has quantified several measures of rating stability and the frequency and magnitude of changes to ratings through time for 174 real-time continuous streamgages active in Virginia as of September 30, 2013. Generalized additive models (GAMs) were fitted...

The UFINCH (Unit Flows In Networks of Channels) computer application can be used to simulate daily and unit flows in networks of streams based on geospatial data in the National Hydrography Dataset NHDPlus (with value added attributes), and U.S. Geoogical Survey daily streamflow data from a downstream (or base) streamgage....

Streams in the Loup River Basin are sensitive to groundwater withdrawals because of the close hydrologic connection between groundwater and surface water. Groundwater discharge is the primary component of streamflow in the Loup River Basin and constitutes more than 90 percent of streamflow in the central part of the Sand...

Regional regression is a common tool used to estimate daily flow-duration curves (FDCs) at ungaged locations. In this report, several refinements to a particular implementation of the regional regression method for estimating FDCs are evaluated by consideration of different methodological options through a leave-one-out cross-validation procedure in the 19 major...

The California State Water Resources Control Board initiated a regional monitoring program in July 2015 to determine where and to what degree groundwater quality may be adversely impacted by oil and gas development activities. A key issue in the implementation of the regional groundwater monitoring program is that each year,...

Groundwater pumping from Bicycle Groundwater Basin (referred to as Bicycle Basin) in the Fort Irwin National Training Center, California, began in 1967. From 1967 to December 2010, about 46,000 acre-feet of water had been pumped from the basin and transported to the Irwin Basin. During this time, not only did...

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of irrigation and cover crops as conservation practices on water quality in groundwater and streams. Bucks Branch, a stream in the Nanticoke River watershed in southwestern Delaware, was identified as having one of the highest concentrations of nitrate in all...