Identifying salt marsh shorelines from remotely sensed elevation data and imagery
Amy S. Farris, Zafer Defne, Neil K. Ganju
2019, Remote Sensing (11)
Salt marshes are valuable ecosystems that are vulnerable to lateral erosion, submergence, and internal disintegration due to sea-level rise, storms, and sediment deficits. Because many salt marshes are losing area in response to these factors, it is important to monitor their lateral extent at high resolution over multiple timescales. In...
Review of indicators for comparing environmental effects across energy sources
Monica Dorning, James E. Diffendorfer, Scott R Loss, Kenneth J. Bagstad
2019, Environmental Research Letters (14)
Robust, quantitative comparisons of environmental effects across energy sources can support development of energy planning strategies that meet growing demand while managing and minimizing undesirable effects on environmental resources. Multicriteria analyses of energy systems often use a suite of indicators to make such comparisons, but those indicators and their units...
Annual winter site fidelity of Barrow's goldeneyes in the Pacific
Megan Willie, Daniel Esler, W. Sean Boyd, Timothy D. Bowman, Jason Schamber, Jonathan Thompson
2019, Journal of Wildlife Management (84) 161-171
Coastal regions on the Pacific north coast of North America provide important wintering habitat for many species of sea ducks. Although winter range and habitat preferences are well described for most species, fidelity to coastal wintering sites is generally undocumented. Fidelity is an important factor necessary for understanding interactions with...
Estimated use of water in Georgia for 2015 and water-use trends, 1985–2015
Jaime A. Painter
2019, Open-File Report 2019-1086
Water-withdrawal, water-use, and water-return information have been collected and compiled for each county in Georgia every 5 years since 1980 using data obtained from various Federal, State, and private agencies, as well as additional online sources. For 2015, water use, water withdrawal, and water returns were estimated for each county,...
Characterizing range-wide population divergence in an alpine-endemic bird: A comparison of genetic and genomic approaches
Kathryn Langin, Cameron L. Aldridge, Jennifer A. Fike, Robert S. Cornman, Kathy M Martin, Greg T Wann, Amy E. Seglund, Michael A Schroeder, David P Benson, Brad C. Fedy, Jessica R. Young, Scott D. Wilson, Don H Wolfe, Clait E. Braun, Sara J. Oyler-McCance
2019, Conservation Genetics (19) 1471-1485
The delineation of intraspecific units that are evolutionarily and demographically distinct is an important step in the development of species-specific management plans. Neutral genetic variation has served as the primary data source for delineating “evolutionarily significant units,” but with recent advances in genomic technology, we now have an unprecedented ability...
Climate-driven state shifts in the Prairie Pothole Region: Assessing future impacts relevant to the management of wetland habitats critical to waterfowl
David M. Mushet, Owen P. McKenna
2019, Report
Embedded within the North American Prairie Pothole Region (PPR) are millions of small, depressional wetlands that annually support 50–80% of the continent’s waterfowl production. We recently assembled evidence that demonstrates a change towards a wetter climate that is driving a shift in the state of the region’s wetland ecosystems. This...
Controls on eolian landscape evolution in fractured bedrock
Jonathan P. Perkins, Noah J. Finnegan, Shanaka L. de Silva, Michael J. Willis
2019, Geophysical Research Letters (46) 12012-12020
Wind abrasion is important for planetary landscape evolution, and wind‐abraded bedrock landscapes contain many landforms that are difficult to interpret. Here we exploit a natural experiment in Chile where topographic shielding by an upwind lava flow yields diverse erosional landforms in a downwind ignimbrite. Using a 3‐D topographic wind model,...
Hurricane Matthew: Predictions, observations, and an analysis of coastal change
Justin J. Birchler, Kara S. Doran, Joseph W. Long, Hilary F. Stockdon
2019, Open-File Report 2019-1095
Hurricane Matthew, the strongest Atlantic hurricane of the 2016 hurricane season, made land-fall south of McClellanville, S.C., around 1500 Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) on October 8, 2016. Hurricane Matthew affected the States of Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina along the U.S. Atlantic coastline. Numerous barrier islands were breached,...
Insights into post-Miocene uplift of the western margin of the Colorado Plateau from the stratigraphic record of the lower Colorado River
Ryan S. Crow, Keith A. Howard, L. Sue Beard, Phil Pearthree, Kyle House, Karl Karlstrom, Lisa Peters, William C. McIntosh, Colleen Cassidy, Tracey J. Felger, Debra Block
2019, Geosphere (15) 1826-1845
The spatial and temporal distribution of Pliocene to Holocene Colorado River deposits (southwestern USA and northwestern Mexico) form a primary data set that records the evolution of a continental-scale river system and helps to delineate and quantify the magnitude of regional deformation. We focus in particular on the age and...
Evaluating the effects of barriers on Slimy Sculpin movement and population connectivity using novel sibship-based and traditional genetic metrics
Spencer Y. Weinstein, Jason A. Coombs, Keith H. Nislow, Chris Riley, Allison H. Roy, Andrew R. Whiteley
2019, Transactions of the American Fisheries Society (148) 1117-1131
Population genetics-based approaches can provide robust and cost-effective ways to assess the effects of potential barriers, including dams and road-stream crossings, on the passage and population connectivity of aquatic organisms. Determining the best way to apply and modify genetic tools for different species and situations is essential for making these...
Economic valuation of Landsat imagery
Crista L. Straub, Stephen R. Koontz, John B. Loomis
2019, Open-File Report 2019-1112
Landsat satellites have been operating since 1972, providing a continuous global record of the Earth’s land surface. The imagery is currently available at no cost through the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). A previous USGS study estimated that Landsat imagery provided users an annual benefit of $2.19 billion in 2011, with...
Plant and insect herbivore community variation across the Paleocene–Eocene boundary in the Hanna Basin, southeastern Wyoming
Lauren E Schmidt, Regan E Dunn, Jason J Mercer, Marieke Dechesne, Ellen D Currano
2019, PeerJ
Ecosystem function and stability are highly affected by internal and external stressors. Utilizing paleobotanical data gives insight into the evolutionary processes an ecosystem undergoes across long periods of time, allowing for a more complete understanding of how plant and insect herbivore communities are affected by ecosystem imbalance. To study how...
Spatial and temporal distribution of bacterial indicators and microbial-source tracking within Tumacácori National Historical Park and the upper Santa Cruz River, southern Arizona and northern Mexico, 2015–2016
Nicholas V. Paretti, Christopher M. Kephart, Thomas J. Porter, Edyth Hermosillo, Jay R. Cederberg, Justine P. Mayo, Bruce Gungle, Alissa L. Coes, Rachel S. Tucci, Laura M. Norman
2019, Scientific Investigations Report 2019-5108
Tumacácori National Historical Park (TUMA) in southern Arizona protects the culturally important Mission San José de Tumacácori, while also managing a part of the ecologically diverse riparian corridor of the Santa Cruz River. The quality of the water flowing through depends solely on upstream watershed activities, and among the water-quality...
Oyster reefs in northern Gulf of Mexico estuaries harbor diverse fish and decapod crustacean assemblages: A meta-synthesis
Megan K. LaPeyre, D. A. Marshall, L. S. Miller, A. T. Humphries
2019, Frontiers in Marine Science (6)
Oyster reefs provide habitat for numerous fish and decapod crustacean species that mediate ecosystem functioning and support vibrant fisheries. Recent focus on the restoration of eastern oyster (Crassostrea virginica) reefs stems from this role as a critical ecosystem engineer. Within the shallow estuaries of the northern Gulf of Mexico (nGoM), the...
River water-quality concentration and flux estimation can be improved by accounting for serial correlation through an autoregressive model
Qian Zhang, Robert M. Hirsch
2019, Water Resources Research (55) 9705-9723
Accurate quantification of riverine water‐quality concentration and flux is challenging because monitoring programs typically collect concentration data at lower frequencies than discharge data. Statistical methods are often used to estimate concentration and flux on days without observations. One recently developed approach is the Weighted Regressions on Time, Discharge, and Season...
Calibration of the USGS National Hydrologic Model in ungauged basins using statistical at-site streamflow simulations
William Farmer, Jacob LaFontaine, Lauren Hay
2019, Journal of Hydrologic Engineering (24)
In the absence of measured streamflow, statistically simulated daily streamflow can be used to support the ability of physical models to represent hydrologic processes at ungauged locations. The objective of this study was to determine the feasibility of using statistical simulations in place of measured streamflow to calibrate physical...
Application of a regional climate model to assess changes in the climatology of the Eastern US and Cuba associated with historic landcover change
Steven W. Hostetler, R Reker, Jay R. Alder, Thomas Loveland, Debra A. Willard, Christopher E. Bernhardt, Eric T. Sundquist, Renee L. Thompson
2019, JGR Atmospheres (124) 11722-11745
We examine the annual, seasonal, monthly, and diurnal climate responses to the land use change (LUC) in eastern United States and Cuba during four epochs (1650, 1850, 1920, and 1992) with ensemble simulations conducted with the RegCM4 regional climate model that includes the Biosphere Atmosphere Transfer Scheme (BATS1e) surface physics...
Remote sensing of dryland ecosystem structure and function: Progress, challenges, and opportunities
William K. Smith, Matthew P. Dannenberg, Dong Yan, Stephanie Herrmann, Mallory L. Barnes, Greg A. Barron-Gafford, Joel A. Biederman, Scott Ferrenberg, Andrew M. Fox, Amy R. Hudson, John F. Knowles, Natasha MacBean, David J.P. Moore, Pamela L. Nagler, Sasha C. Reed, William A. Rutherford, Russell L. Scott, Xianfeng Wang, Julia Yang
2019, Remote Sensing of Environment (233)
Drylands make up roughly 40% of the Earth's land surface, and billions of people depend on services provided by these critically important ecosystems. Despite their relatively sparse vegetation, dryland ecosystems are structurally and functionally diverse, and emerging evidence suggests that these ecosystems...
Mountain-block recharge: A review of current understanding
Katherine H. Markovich, Andrew H. Manning, Laura Condon, Jennifer McIntosh
2019, Water Resources Research (55) 8278-8304
Mountain-block recharge (MBR) is the subsurface inflow of groundwater to lowland aquifers from adjacent mountains. MBR can be a major component of recharge but remains difficult to characterize and quantify due to limited hydrogeologic, climatic, and other data in the mountain block and at the mountain front. The number of...
Do parents synchronise nest visits as an antipredator adaptation in birds of New Zealand and Tasmania?
Nyil Khwaja, Melanie Massaro, Thomas E. Martin, James V. Briskie
2019, Frontiers in Ecology and Environment (7)
Birds with altricial offspring need to feed them regularly, but each feeding visit risks drawing attention to the nest and revealing its location to potential predators. Synchronisation of visits by both parents has been suggested as a behavioural adaptation to reduce the risk of nest predation. Under this hypothesis, higher...
sUAS-based remote sensing of river discharge using thermal particle image velocimetry and bathymetric lidar
Paul J. Kinzel, Carl J. Legleiter
2019, Remote Sensing (11)
This paper describes a non-contact methodology for computing river discharge based on data collected from small Unmanned Aerial Systems (sUAS). The approach is complete in that both surface velocity and channel geometry are measured directly under field conditions. The technique does not require introducing artificial tracer particles for computing...
Flood-frequency estimates for Ohio streamgages based on data through water year 2015 and techniques for estimating flood-frequency characteristics of rural, unregulated Ohio streams
G. F. Koltun
2019, Scientific Investigations Report 2019-5018
Estimates of the magnitudes of annual peak streamflows with annual exceedance probabilities of 0.5, 0.2, 0.1, 0.04, 0.02, 0.01, and 0.002 (equivalent to recurrence intervals of 2-, 5-, 10-, 25-, 50-, 100-, and 500-years, respectively) were computed for 391 streamgages in Ohio and adjacent states based on data collected through...
Catalog of microscopic organisms of the Everglades, part 2—The desmids of the Arthur R. Marshall Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge
Barry H. Rosen, Katherine N. Stahlhut, John D. Hall
2019, Scientific Investigations Report 2019-5074
The Arthur R. Marshall Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge (refuge), Boynton Beach, Florida, contains approximately 147,000 acres southeast of Lake Okeechobee. Water quality in the interior portion of the refuge is strongly influenced by rainfall, resulting in slightly acidic waters with low dissolved ions. Desmids, a unique, ornate group of green...
Characteristics of feeding sites of California Condors (Gymnogyps californianus) in the human-dominated landscape of Southern California
Jonathan C. Hall, Melissa A. Braham, Lee Ann Nolan, Jamison Conley, Joseph Brandt, Laura C. Mendenhall, Michael J. Lanzone, Andrew J. McGann, Todd E. Katzner
2019, Wilson Journal of Ornithology (131) 459-471
Wildlife conservation is often improved by understanding the movement ecology of species and adapting management strategies to dynamic conditions associated with movement. Despite a remarkable recovery over the past 30 year, the establishment of self-sustaining populations of California Condors (Gymnogyps californianus) has been challenging in the human-dominated landscapes of southern...
Baseline environmental monitoring of groundwater, surface water, and soil at the Ammonium Perchlorate Rocket Motor Destruction Facility at the Letterkenny Army Depot, Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, 2016
Daniel G. Galeone
2019, Open-File Report 2019-1094
Letterkenny Army Depot in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, built an Ammonium Perchlorate Rocket Motor Destruction (ARMD) facility in 2016. The ARMD Facility was designed to centralize rocket motor destruction and contain or capture all waste during the destruction process. Ideally, there would be no contaminant transport to air, soil, or water from...
